Thread: Is Bitcoin an imploding ponzi??...

The price is falling...has the ponzi imploded or does this somehow prove that bitcoin is the real deal??...

I have always thought it to be a farce myself.

The price of Bitcoin is definitely crashing...

China's bitcoin crackdown forces exchanges to close - Sep. 15, 2017

Jamie Dimon calls bitcoin a 'fraud' - Sep. 12, 2017

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time."

"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."

Bitcoin: financial revolution or modern day tulipmania? - BBC Newsnight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxdOdVCDI8

Given what we know:

* Bubbles of this size simply cannot be sustained for any length of time

* The number of supposed Bitcoin "miners" which are being used by investors.

* The number of supposed "wallets" being used to store Bitcoin

* The number of supposed "altcoins" opening almost daily

* The complete lack of oversight and regulation in, on and around the "altcoin" phenomenon

* The number of known fraudsters e.g. Lawson, Dotson / Bigg, Danny Turner / Doede Khan, Ade Hibbert etc, etc, etc pimping Bitcoin and altcoin related schemes

* The number of completely and utterly unsophisticated investor / purchasers entering the market.

* Governments of all persuasions are highly unlikely to sit back and allow "altcoins" to continue to be used to blatantly fund criminal activities

This is shaping up to be a massive crisis in the not too distant future.

"Complicating all that is the use of cryptocurrencies in the "dark web" for a wide variety of illicit activities, from money laundering to drug dealing to prostitution, among others."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/bitc...on-insana.html

Bitcoin is not a ponzi. It has a finite supply that is being way out-stripped by demand this year and about 80% of existing mining is controlled by Chinese companies(think DeBeers and diamonds), not mining machines in some dude's basement because mining Bitcoin is pointless for hobbyists due to energy costs and hardware requirements. Now day-trading Bitcoin up/down can certainly be profitable, sometimes extremely so. You can also lose your ass just like any other day trading of anything though if you're not careful. You suddenly have every wanna-be guru selling courses, plans similar to forex trading, etc. and most have no clue what they are doing with cryptocurrency except they know it has been booming this year.

There isn't a shortage of other altcoins that are indeed ponzis. Most Proof-of-Stake coins like Ripple are definitely so. The POS crypto's generally pay an annual return on the amount your staking of a few percent annually. Now, where is that return coming from if the crypto price goes down in value during the year? Hmmmm.

Yes, these are investments but some like Bitcoin are not a ponzi setup at all. It comes down to the same thing with anything else....it's value is what someone else willingly will give you for it. No different than physical gold, diamonds, fiat money, etc.

NUK

Originally Posted by Bestbud

"Complicating all that is the use of cryptocurrencies in the "dark web" for a wide variety of illicit activities, from money laundering to drug dealing to prostitution, among others."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/bitc...on-insana.html

And that's what gets them done every time....The feds didn't care about E-gold or Liberty Reserve being used for scams...Being used for the sale of kiddy porn and on carders forums etc is why they got shut down...same will happen to bitcoin IMHO....

Originally Posted by okosh

Being used for the sale of kiddy porn and on carders forums etc is why they got shut down...same will happen to bitcoin IMHO....

I'm at a loss as to the value of Bitcoin over say a credit card for any non illicit transaction. It's price is not very stable and virtually impossible to hedge which makes it impractical to use on any large scale.

The consumer protections with Bitcoin are non existent which benefits who? Recently I paid 3% more on a transaction where I wanted to make certain the other party delivered, easy peasy. I also had two product returns this month, no sweat but if there was a problem the credit cards make it simple enough to dispute. End of the month what the hell difference does it make if I write a check or send BC?

As a merchant the lack of chargebacks "might" be a good thing, still I'm betting most consumers would rather be protected.

Blockchain provides instant funding in contrast to the antiquated check/deposit clearing metrics employed by banks. That however has little to do with BC itself and is a technology easily poached.
Maybe BC remains a store of value like gold, but seems to have the same property in that the only value/use is what the next guy is willing to pay.

Originally Posted by ribshaw

Maybe BC remains a store of value like gold, but seems to have the same property in that the only value/use is what the next guy is willing to pay.

That's exactly what Bitcoin is worth....what someone else will give you for it. No different than physical gold, though if you tell a goldbug that they have a heart attack as they assign magical properties to gold that exist about as much as unicorns.

YAHOO Finance is reporting:



You can read the original article here at au.finance.yahoo.com

The SEC will need to be technically savvy if it wants to keep up with criminals....

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-g...150100532.html

The Security and Exchange Commission today has charged both a diamond and a real estate initial coin offering scheme with defrauding investors.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-c...003107769.html

SEC press release

"Russia looked poised for a crackdown on cryptocurrencies Tuesday, after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called cryptocurrencies risky and the country’s central bank said it would block websites selling bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies."

Russia says it will crack down on bitcoin | TheHill

Originally Posted by Bestbud

"... Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called cryptocurrencies risky and the country’s central bank said it would block websites selling bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies."

Russia says it will crack down on bitcoin | TheHill

hmm, you meant to say President :)

I know, it is confusing when he is trying to switch between prime minister and president posts every 8 years not to break the Constitution laws. :)

Wonder how many Russian $$$ have been in the latest huge buying surge of Bitcoin since that announcement by Putin and the central bank. It is now at $5200 as I type this. Bitcoin investors say "thanks Putin!"

NUK

“Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world."

BlackRock CEO: Bitcoin is an index of money laundering | TheHill

Originally Posted by Bestbud

“Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world."

BlackRock CEO: Bitcoin is an index of money laundering | TheHill

Seems like a rather flippant remark with nothing backing up the statement. While I'm hesitant to argue with a guy who is CEO over a company that manages about 30 trillion in assets and is the largest de facto bank in the world that is 10x bigger than the largest banks in the world, the USD and other fiat money is a helluva lot more widely used and far, far easier way to launder money. Bitcoin might be an option for laundering some small amounts and converting coin to cash through face-to-face(local bitcoin) or ATM transactions(limited to about 2K/day), but on a large-scale or big money? Need banks that are dirty and can process very big bucks.

Now-defunct Silk Road and Alphabay darknet markets both used the globally regulated existing banking system to launder hundreds of millions of Bitcoin and Monero into cash. How? All it takes a few dirty banks looking the other way. A couple even issued fake tax information for the owners to file and pay taxes on, so viola, clean money there too.

Only problem with Bitcoin right now is when to cash-out. I did about 70% of mine when it crossed 4000. Now, I'm hesitant to sell the other 30% as crazy as it's booming upward.

NUK

Originally Posted by nuk_1

Only problem with Bitcoin right now is when to cash-out.

NUK

That's no where near the "only problem" facing Bitcoin, or cryptocurrency, for that matter.

Putting aside any advantages cryptocurrency may have, Bitcoin is right in the middle of a speculative "bubble" at the minute.

Search "Tulip mania" for an example of what happens during and after a speculative bubble, whether it involves tulips, fiat, cryptocurrency or Fibrollated Sigglestats.

All it will take is one example of a terrorist organization using Bitcoin to fund or finance its' operations and government will move in, quicker than you can say "but cryptocurrency has many advantages"

There are currently over a thousand "cryptocurrencies" listed on exchanges. How many of them are legitimate enough and will last long enough that Joe and Joanne Citizen will use, and more importantly, trust cryptocurrency ???

IM(very)HO, cryptocurrency is an excellent concept.

Execution in the real world is a totally different thing, ESPECIALLY when the criminal classes recognized its' potential before the man in the street.

Originally Posted by littleroundman

That's no where near the "only problem" facing Bitcoin, or cryptocurrency, for that matter.

Maybe I should have said "my problem with Bitcoin." I could care less whether it ever becomes widely accepted and a viable alternative to fiat money.
Same with any cryptocurrency. It's like any other investment to me, not some revolution in the world of finance.

Putting aside any advantages cryptocurrency may have, Bitcoin is right in the middle of a speculative "bubble" at the minute.

All it will take is one example of a terrorist organization using Bitcoin to fund or finance its' operations and government will move in, quicker than you can say "but cryptocurrency has many advantages"

Some crypto has advantages, but 99% of them will never be adopted as anything other than on the fringe. All the gazillion ICO's right now are pure ponzi. You'll have Bitcoin, Ether,Litecoin and a few others left standing, along with Monero since it has the most anonymity of any crypto out there, maybe a handful of others like Dash and Zcash. Crypto not using the blockchain,

As far as governments sweeping-in, the decentralized nature makes it a little more difficult than stopping old fashioned money laundering with fiat currency, and why would terrorists use crypto to launder big money when it's exceedingly difficult to do and regular fiat is much easier? small-time laundering that still has an exit point right back into the banking system. The close-to-anonymity of Bitcoin is heavily out-weighed by the logistical and technical headaches of trying to convert large amounts of it into something usable. It can only be done if you have mainstream banks helping you launder. Liberty Reserve showed what happens when you try to create a financial enterprise based around money laundering, you eventually end up getting completely cut-off to the global banking system, killing the money laundering aspect, as well as busted. LR had its own ecurrency but by far the vast amounts being laundered were good 'ol mainstream fiat sources.

There are currently over a thousand "cryptocurrencies" listed on exchanges. How many of them are legitimate enough and will last long enough that Joe and Joanne Citizen will use, and more importantly, trust cryptocurrency ???

Hardly any and most will disappear.

IM(very)HO, cryptocurrency is an excellent concept.

Execution in the real world is a totally different thing, ESPECIALLY when the criminal classes recognized its' potential before the man in the street.
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Crypto has it's pro's, but the biggest of not being controlled by governments, financial juggernauts, and monetary policy or regulations is a major con for wide acceptance because those same institutions don't like competition at all. For folks wanting to buy some drugs, very useful. For those wanting to buy a house? Yeah, good luck with that.Launder a lot of dirty money without using the existing, regulated financial systems? Yeah, good luck with that too.

NUK

"Russia will issue its own official cryptocurrency, the CryptoRuble, capping months of speculation about the country’s approach to the technology. While in a way it indicates an embrace of the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum, the CryptoRuble is unlikely to share the truly decentralized nature of other coins."

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/ru...he-cryptoruble

While in theory Bitcoin and blockchain technologies do look promising and all that, in practice there are quite a few things that may prevent wide use of Bitcoin like absence of regulation, high conversion costs, KYC https://tranio.com/world/analytics/h...e-market_5405/

This could happen to Bitcoin wallets, too...

A crypto user deleted some code in a popular cryptocurrency wallet Parity - Business Insider