Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

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Eviltaco64X
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Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

Every now and then I throw some spare cash into crypto and PMs (mostly silver).
I know Lightning is somewhat controversial, but I think it would compliment on-chain tx a lot more than it would ruin profitability for miners. LN has the potential to scale and provide substantial liquidity and speed for low-value tx (i.e. $2 cups of coffee) that would otherwise be too expensive and out of reach for on-chain. I respect Bitcoin Cash's decision to fork and take the architecture in a slightly different direction, but I've always been skeptical of their overdone attempts to deceive people into thinking it's "the real Bitcoin" (aka buying bitcoin.com or making their subreddit r/BTC). I really have no hat in that ring so I just stay away from all the drama and infighting.

Monero/XMR and CLOAK are my favorite privacy coins and Stakenet/XSN is my favorite underdog altcoin for this next market cycle. The project is basically getting several very promising but underdeveloped and underutilized technologies (PoS consensus, LN, masternodes, and DEXs), compartmentalizing them into one, and using their respective strengths to benefit each other in ways that have not been done before. Pure PoS coins are inflationary by nature and lack that direct evaluation from energy costs that PoW coins have. Lightning isn't profitable enough to make individuals build and sustain a permanent decentralized network for it's sake. MNs typically do nothing more than collect passive income for hosting the full chain of a particular coin. DEXs are notoriously slow, hard to access, and lacking in volume so they've never had much chance against the heavyweight not-so-ideal centralized crypto-to-crypto exchanges. Individually, they are flawed, but if you put them together you have a network of infinitely-upgradeable hardware as a 2nd layer atop the chain itself that can be pooled together into a code-agnostic supercomputer of individual Masternodes and run an immutable DEX capable of utilizing the collateral locked within the MN network to provide LN with a permanent, stable, growth-oriented pool of liquidity for handling instant tx and utilizing TPoS (trustless staking) to further strengthen the security of the network and the layers it runs atop. This security is further strengthened by the way TPoS incentivizes people with relatively small amounts of a staking coin to stake offline and profit much more than they would leaving their wallet open and running their computer 24/7 to receive routine staking rewards. It's down quite the rabbit hole of obscurity right now (low mcap altcoin in a field infamous for pump and dump scams) but I genuinely don't think it will be for much longer.

I've been out of ETH for about 2 years now, but I'm tempted to get back in. ETH 2.0 will more than likely cause a big rally at some point soon.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by cube_b3 »

All I know is after a little bit of rise, there is a hell of a lot of fall.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by |darc| »

Dunno how I missed this thread when you posted it a month ago...

I have paid attention to BTC and appreciate blockchain technology but I am pretty far behind now in all the new currencies and how they work. I think there are too many forked currencies at the moment and that really hurts cryptocurrency adoption.
It's thinking...
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

cube_b3 wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:30 pm All I know is after a little bit of rise, there is a hell of a lot of fall.
There is certainly a lot of volatility. The amount of wealth invested in cryptocurrencies is still a fraction of a fraction of the wealth invested in more traditional markets. They are also largely unregulated by design. Therefore, bad elements like straightforward pump and dump schemes, insider trading, absurd fees, shady credit with fatal interest rates, fraud, etc. are influences. Occasionally, one of these influences gets so out of hand that it makes national headlines. Bitconnect is probably the most famous. It was a blatant period scheme, amassed $4.58 billion in wealth at it's peak, and then suffered a sudden and brutal decline the day the top of the pyramid exit scammed.

Internationally, governments are a bit confused and hesitant on how to handle it. None of them can directly influence these networks. I think the big picture at the moment is that they see crypto as a threat in some regards, but they don't want to be left behind. France was notable for announcing ominous crackdowns in early 2018 and then flip-flopping and "wanting to be at the forefront of blockchain" only 3 months later. China has banned Bitcoin at least 5 times. India banned it only to just recently unban it. Japan is pretty straightforward in treating Bitcoin as a currency. In the US, "virtual currencies" are treated like property and so every purchase, sell, and trade is treated as if it were in stocks - each event with it's own purchase/sell gains/losses to report. There is legislation that would allow for smaller (<$200) transactions to be exempt from this sort of grouping so you could actually use Bitcoin to buy concert tickets and then go grab a beer afterwards without being legally obligated to report every transaction to the IRS.

The uncertainty and volatility makes it a risky, but interesting market to be in. The technology continues to evolve and make itself manifest. If it continues to grow as it has and if just a tiny portion of traditional market money enters in, the market will likely see massive growth again. The more Bitcoin rises, the more stable it will inevitably become.
|darc| wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:40 pm Dunno how I missed this thread when you posted it a month ago...

I have paid attention to BTC and appreciate blockchain technology but I am pretty far behind now in all the new currencies and how they work. I think there are too many forked currencies at the moment and that really hurts cryptocurrency adoption.
I agree 100% when it comes to all the schisms. Groups of miners get hung up on something, fork, and start another little tribe. If it continues down that path, we'll end up with 3,000 "one true" Bitcoins that attack each other and they'll all be easily devoured by tokenized fiat coins.
The most important thing is preserving the original essence of Bitcoin as P2P digital cash that can be derived and spent anonymously.
https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html
The biggest fork (Bitcoin Cash) came in mid-2017. BTC soared to $4-6k and it's network (capped at 7 tx/sec) got so overburdened, that transfer times became very slow (6 hours+). As tx fees are based on a fixed rate (.x BTC), they began to skyrocket too. What used to cost 30 cents to send could cost $30. BTC's network grew so much that it was pushed to it's absolute limits.

A group of miners led by Roger Ver insisted that the best solution going forward for fees and tx times would be increasing blocksize from 1 MB to 8 MB. The alternative was to preserve the legacy chain as it is in it's entirety and build a 2nd layer on top of it. Bitcoin decided to take this route. They implemented Segregated Witness/SegWit (removes digital signatures from tx to double bandwidth to 14 tx/s, 2MB block size) and Lightning Network.

Lightning Network is basically a series of payment channels running as a 2nd layer atop BTC. These channels are theoretically capable of sending any particular amount of Bitcoin instantly and for near-zero fees. While it sounds ideal on paper, however, Lightning has three massive outstanding problems:
1.) Near-zero fees = low profitability unless it is done on a very large scale. Therefore, Lightning is subject to heavy centralization.
2.) Low profitability means little incentive to run LN nodes past a hobbyist level. Lightning still has massive liquidity problems and will continue to have them until some centralized pool of funds can provide enough collateral for it to handle heavy volume.
3.) Miners process on-chain tx and secure the network. Over-utilization of Lightning on the 2nd layer has the potential to harm that profitability and integrity of the core network.

These changes led to Roger Ver's coalition forking off to form Bitcoin Cash, which itself split into two with Bitcoin SV.

BTC has been compromised in certain regards, but it is still very well capable of functioning as P2P cash. XMR has grown increasingly obfuscated and already acts as P2P cash especially well without any afterthought. XSN's solution of implementing LN nodes into a masternode network could potentially provide Bitcoin a massive quasi-centralized pool of liquidity from a decentralized ecosystem. All that could, simply put, let you buy a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoin immediately - without high fees and without any sacrifices to it's privacy-oriented cypherpunk essence.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by cube_b3 »

All I know is I want to breakeven and GTFO.

But I think at this point it was to greedy of an idea. I should've bolted last month when it surged slightly. Now my portfolio is worth 20% of what I invested over two years ago. I understand the technology of digital currency is cool and countries are getting on board but these coins, I can't see them being viable and I am disappointed in myself for being so greedy. I made 600% return. I should have cut and run then or when it was falling instead I Hodled myself to hell.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

cube_b3 wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 5:08 am All I know is I want to breakeven and GTFO.

But I think at this point it was to greedy of an idea. I should've bolted last month when it surged slightly. Now my portfolio is worth 20% of what I invested over two years ago. I understand the technology of digital currency is cool and countries are getting on board but these coins, I can't see them being viable and I am disappointed in myself for being so greedy. I made 600% return. I should have cut and run then or when it was falling instead I Hodled myself to hell.
Market psychology can be an evil thing. If it's up, then it must go up forever. If it's down, then it must stay down forever. The second any price action directly contradicts the old sentiment, it evaporates on the spot and a new kind of sentiment comes in.
It's best to make a plan and stick to it.
My strategy since Jan 2019 is very basic: buy 3-4 coins MAX into the end of 2020, hold into 2021, reassess no later than early 2022. 15 months in and it's going well. In another 20-22, I will know for sure whether or not this plan was brilliant or the most idiotic thing someone could do.
In terms of risk, it's a bit like asking some cute girl out. Try, and you just might hit it off. Don't, and you surely won't. I'd rather crash to the ground in a wreck than never get off the ground for "fear of flying", if you know what I mean.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by cube_b3 »

I have studied investments for a solid 3 years now and I am generally averse to the idea because the market is rigged. People are educated gamblers only in it for the profit. Acquiring profits and dumping. It is an entire industry.

I have real world investments, I have seen businesses and invested in them - private companies - where I am a silent or minority partner. I am not studying trends, I am believing in a product. I don't think I am articulating my sentiments appropriately. But the idea is that the stock market is filled with people who are not investing in a product or something they can stand behind. They just see numbers and set timers to buy when it reaches X price and sell when it reaches Y. I enjoyed it when I didn't understand the macro picture, now I associate with people in the field of finance and I find them and their strategies repulsive. I prefer my job, I work, I do my hours I get my money. It is hard work compensated with hard cash.

That said, I think a part of me has already written off my investment in Crypto as a total loss. A lot of alt-coins I invested in were actually delisted or have hit rock bottom. So even if I breakeven, it won't be through the coins I believed in. Like Request Network. Good luck to you though.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

cube_b3 wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2020 6:01 pm I have studied investments for a solid 3 years now and I am generally averse to the idea because the market is rigged. People are educated gamblers only in it for the profit. Acquiring profits and dumping. It is an entire industry.

I have real world investments, I have seen businesses and invested in them - private companies - where I am a silent or minority partner. I am not studying trends, I am believing in a product. I don't think I am articulating my sentiments appropriately. But the idea is that the stock market is filled with people who are not investing in a product or something they can stand behind. They just see numbers and set timers to buy when it reaches X price and sell when it reaches Y. I enjoyed it when I didn't understand the macro picture, now I associate with people in the field of finance and I find them and their strategies repulsive. I prefer my job, I work, I do my hours I get my money. It is hard work compensated with hard cash.

That said, I think a part of me has already written off my investment in Crypto as a total loss. A lot of alt-coins I invested in were actually delisted or have hit rock bottom. So even if I breakeven, it won't be through the coins I believed in. Like Request Network. Good luck to you though.
Money and hyperconsumption are religions in their own right. A cult of greed with a navy of sweatshops watching over a sea of overpriced garbage.
I think I hate the "woke corporation" more than anything else. Example..
"We use slave labor to mass-produce and overhype useless shit that no one needs, then we rebadge our sweatshop goods with a prestigious brand name that has a 'humanitarian philosophy' that we can use to upcharge to the sky... But we are fiercely committed to lecturing the public on racism and climate change."
Wall Street types are usually assholes, but at least they're arrogant enough to be straightforward about it.

Wealth is health, food, water, arms/security, land, paid bills, covered emergencies, and the freedom to pretty much be left alone. I see where you're coming from in terms of work. I don't long for stuff to buy these days, but I still love eating something good after coming home from work exhausted. It's so simple.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by cube_b3 »

I made my last post really late at night, while I was half a sleep.
Was concerned about nonsensically babbling. Glad we are in agreement.

When it comes to investments, I'd really like to go back to the simpler times when people just invested and waited on dividends rather than insider trading or whatever. While it may be hard to do it in the stock market but Crypto is ripe for conning people with no regulations in place:


We keep Hodling due to our Fomo.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Calavera »

I'm not into it at all!
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

cube_b3 wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:12 pm When it comes to investments, I'd really like to go back to the simpler times when people just invested and waited on dividends rather than insider trading or whatever. While it may be hard to do it in the stock market but Crypto is ripe for conning people with no regulations in place:
The stock market abandoned classic fundamentals decades ago. Most of the performance we've seen these past few years is largely influenced by credit used for stock buybacks.

Old states like NY, CT, PA, etc generally have archaic employee pension plans - e.g. someone that started at the DMV back in 74 gets a full retirement. Before the dollar was taken off the gold standard and left to inflate (aka lose it's value) to infinity, this was doable.

Currency inflation happens on a much larger scale than any one of these states operates on. The sizable majority of us who earn wealth for providing value in a classical sense (i.e. putting in a day of work) are robbed of it by whoever runs or is in good favor with money printers. Nevertheless, they're tethered and constantly put to the task of keeping up with it. In order to do so effectively, they need large ROIs in short time-frames (7%+/year returns).

Their solutions generally entail 1 of these 3 options:

1.) Play the markets
2.) Cut state employee benefits
3.) Raise taxes on the peasants (again)

Politicians are naturally reluctant to abuse #3 to make up for the state's incompetence as it might cost them re-election. Some mix of #2 and #3 is very common (less benefits and services for more money - or else). So long as the weather is permitting, they choose to play the markets instead.

How exactly do you get consistent 7%+ returns on an investment? Credit owed by taxpayers but not authorized by them and high-risk corporate bonds. Corporations then use that money to buy back their own stock and shrink the available supply - directly affecting the price.

This is why - at least into the start of this year - we had so many large-scale businesses hitting record-high stock prices despite them declaring losses.

Water is a good metaphor to summarize it all briefly:
1.) Flood the USD(CAD/GBP/EUR/JPY/etc) supply from a God's eye perspective.
2.) Drain wealth from nations, peoples, and treasuries by redirecting the new supply towards cancerous actors and interests who didn't earn a cent of it.
3.) Repeat.

Every time a bank, mega-corp, or some prestigious institution acts incompetently and fucks up (a common occurrence), they're rescued when they should be left to collapse. Their "escape rope" is always hitched to our necks.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by cube_b3 »

That's some complicated stuff.
I understood the leaving gold standard, but how the paper economy and inflation works is a more layered issue.

I am unaware of the 7% ROI. I thought if you acquired enough stock in a company you will simply receive dividends from their profits based on the percentage of the company you own. I own 5% shareholder. Company makes $100 profits after every employee and expenses are taken care of. I get $5. Simple?
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by abbras8 »

I think you’re right about ETH 2.0—it could definitely trigger a rally. There’s always something new to keep an eye on in the crypto space, so it’s about finding the projects that align with your goals.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by rey_1178 »

I’m into Bitcoin too, though I haven’t dug as deep into Lightning as you have. I agree that it has potential, especially for smaller transactions, but I also see why it’s controversial. As for Bitcoin Cash, I’ve always stayed away from that drama, there are just too many projects out there with solid foundations to get caught up in it.

Monero has also been one of my go-to privacy coins. I’ve been watching Solana a lot lately too, especially for its speed and low fees compared to others like ETH. I’ve used Solana Scripts to explore token launches and boost volume, and it’s been a pretty solid experience so far.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by MulletMan13 »

Not really into BTC, but I have dabbled a bit here and there over the years. To explain myself; here are some bullet points nobody asked for:

- Bought $20 of BTC at E3 in like... 2012. Signed up for a site and everything, gave me my wallet ID and backup codes; never thought anything about it. This one kind of eats me up because I know that it was a large amount of BTC, but I know that If I *actually* had it, I would have sold it when it was around $10 or so

- A few years later had a few BTC in some shady sites on the dark web (back when it was sub-$100 per BTC); had like 8 BTC get taken by the Fed because of the nature of the marketplace. Oh well.

- When lockdown started, frankensteined two of my computers around the houses with GPU and started mining Eth. Had a good time tweaking TDP and making it automated and as efficient as possible, but once one of the splits/halves happened it was not worth it anymore (especially with power rates in SoCal)

- Spent some time on alt currencies trying to take calculated risks; won some and lost some. Then had a realization that it just really appealed to me because of my love of gambling.

Anyways after all of that, it's difficult for me to take 'seriously' as an actual investment. I've seen many friends gain a LOT of money with crypto, and almost all of them squander it in some way or another-- chasing the dragon to other cryptocurrencies with 'more upside' and all that, or just buying/selling at the wrong times.

I'm sure there is a real approach to leveraging this crazy, unregulated time; but now that I have money to invest, I'm putting it in more sure markets for the future. With that said, I feel like once the markets mature and patterns develop, I might jump back in but for me I am admiring from afar.
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Re: Is anyone here into Bitcoin?

Post by Eviltaco64X »

It looks like the crypto market is starting to wake up again. Always seems to happen during the year of the US Presidential elections and really take off the year the President is inaugurated (2013, 2017, 2021, ..).

I have what I have from years ago - haven't invested in anything crypto or non since 2020, haven't kept up. Basically just waiting to see what happens this cycle with what I still have - some investments sank, others have a lot of promise. Between early 2017 and early 2021 I followed the entire cycle from BTC waking back up again, to peak euphoria, to peak depression (i.e. media writing eulogies for it), to BTC breaking its old ATH and ascending into mid-5k range. I had my finger on the pulse and followed along with what was happening almost everyday, checked price trackers constantly, all that stuff. On paper (and only on paper), I was technically a multi-millionaire for a split second. Such is the nature of these wild west markets.

I did the same thing with crypto and economics that I did with more general news and politics but, unlike keeping up with politics on a daily basis, I consider the time keeping up with all this kind of stuff to have been very insightful and worth every second. I went through all the stages of investor psychology - the highest highs of euphoria, the addiction, the lowest lows, making arrogant bets that didn't work out - now price means absolutely nothing to me. My entire net worth might quadruple in a day. It might sink by 90%. All one and the same. All that really matters is the inherent value and the decisions you make in the heat of the moment.
MulletMan13 wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2024 7:39 pm- Spent some time on alt currencies trying to take calculated risks; won some and lost some. Then had a realization that it just really appealed to me because of my love of gambling.
Gambling has its place but it's definitely one of those things some people just have to avoid like alcohol. I worked a lot of gas stations when I was a teenager and did lottery for all the disgruntled townies who hated their jobs and dropped their paychecks on Powerball and $20 scratch-offs. I fell into plenty of other bad habits, but that one in particular made an impact and kept me away from the same fate. I figure there's no harm in leaving the door open to chance and luck just a hairline crack for the fun of it so I allow myself a $10/year budget for lottery. Went on a trip to Las Vegas once and budgeted $100 because I wanted to gamble at a real casino, just to do it - lost $60 on slots, made $100 on blackjack and called it there - up a tidy sum of $40. :mrgreen:
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