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Hey what's you guys' opinion on Bitcoin Cash? I have a colleague at work who's looking to get into crypto and was convinced by somebody that that was the way to go.
It seems to me like the "day to day currency to buy things" use case is really secondary to the "store of value" use case for Bitcoin, and that if you did want to use it as currency the Lightning network does that, so does Bitcoin Cash really have a reason for being?
I think the environmental concern is partly an excuse. You have a bit of everything in there:
-I've been telling people it's like tulips, now a bunch of people got rich and I'm jealous -> it's bad for the environment!
-I like a centralized government and being able to toy with the currency -> it's bad for the environment!
-I like being able to control what people can or cannot buy -> it's bad for the environment!
-I think it's going to cause some major headaches with taxation -> it's bad for the environment!
-I'm concerned that it's bad for the environment -> it's bad for the environment! (If indeed Elon isn't just trolling, I'm pretty sure he's honest about that part - the politicians not so much)
Quoted from Astropin:I honestly think Elon is going to come out and say that Telsa will begin mining Bitcoin using 100% reneable energy sources. Or, something related.
Tesla is still sitting on billions in BTC...they didn't sell any.
That would make sense.
Quoted from Astropin:Either a Trezor or Ledger hardware wallet.
Is there a downside to just having your BTC hash written down somewhere(s) secure as opposed to having an actual wallet?
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:What do you mean by your hash? Are you referring to your 24 word mnemonic seed?
Sorry. Yes, that is what I meant 
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:Where is your wallet? Is it on your computer? You'd only have the seed if you had physical control over the wallet.
Anyway, the problem is if you spilled your coffee on it, your house burned down, your dog ate it, etc. I have mine on two steel plates in safes in two different locations. I wouldn't recommend paper if you're storing a decent amount of currency.
This is what I use to store the seed phrase. The bulk of my stuff is on a Trezor with about 30% on exchanges for staking and or quick sale.
amazon.com link »
Right, it is on my computer. But let's say I was to say I have enough, I don't plan on selling any, I don't even need a wallet, right? I agree with the single piece of paper of course, but my point was just: as long as you have your seed phrase you're good, right?
I don't see how anybody would be surprised that China doesn't like crypto. Communism is all based on centrallization. The whole decentralization thing is totally incompatible with it. (Of course, is it really decentralized, and so on and so forth, is a whole different discussion).
I think that's really where the "bitcoiners/maximalists" (can't say I'm one of them, but I think I understand the mindset) differ from the "investors". Investors want widespread acceptance, bitcoiners want to fight government control, as I understand it.
...and for that matter, I don't see how any government, even on the free market side, would be too fond of it either.
Quoted from Durzel:It’s not so much that it’s a surprise, moreover that every time they say something things take a downturn. It as if this fact isn’t priced in.
The US hasn’t even made any substantial comments on it yet. If they start hinting at similar controls, things will get bad, I think. The worst part is that this can happen at any time with no warning.
Not trying to be a downer, just pragmatic.
I guess it's probably gotten as big as it can get (or close to it) - it's probably getting to that size where governments will want to snuff it before it gets out of hand and gains mainstream traction and I would think it's not a coincidence that they're kind of all coming out around the same time. The whole pollution thing is an excuse (not saying it's not true, just that it's convenient to hide behind that).
Regular people will not want to touch anything illegal, especially if it starts to come with some tax evasion-type penalties, so there goes the mainstream acceptance. People doing illegal things will still use it for currency as it's already out there and not traceable, so it's probably going to remain in existence for a long time.
The one I'm still confused about is Elon though. Again he didn't just realize last week the pollution part and he doesn't seem to be one to go hand in hand with government, but he is certainly unpredictable.
Quoted from Durzel:It’s not so much that it’s a surprise, moreover that every time they say something things take a downturn. It as if this fact isn’t priced in.
The US hasn’t even made any substantial comments on it yet. If they start hinting at similar controls, things will get bad, I think. The worst part is that this can happen at any time with no warning.
Not trying to be a downer, just pragmatic.
That's the only US Gov comment I've seen so far...
pasted_image (resized).pngQuoted from CrazyLevi:Does anybody really "like" crypto?
I mean we are 12 years into it and nobody uses it.
Quoted from Concretehardt:I am wondering about that myself, besides Elon pumping it what else does it have going for it.. or am I missing something?
Not sure how exactly, but I think Mark Cuban is onboard too. Apparently the Mavericks "accept" Dogecoin - how and to buy what I'm not sure.
Quoted from Deaconblooze:I've thought about something like keepass. How well does it work across multiple devices? I sign into various sites via several computers and my phone.
Passwords are getting out of control. My work computer requires a passphrase that's something like 30 characters long and has to be updated every 90 days and must be x% different than the previous password. Not only do you have to remember the passphrase, you have to be able to type it with perfect precision blind. I've been close to throwing the damn laptop against the wall on several failed login attempts, and I'm a pretty calm dude.
I think having 30 character passwords with no other requirements is tons better than the minimum 8 chars with one number, one uppercase, one special character deal.
Much easier to remember, much harder to crack.
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:I was curious about all this FUD surrounding energy usage and CO2 emissions. From what I found the total Green house gas production (converting Methane, Nitrous Oxide, etc into CO2 Equivalents) is 51.8 Gigatons / year. Which is 51,8000,000,000 Tons each year.
They seem to attribute BTC mining to the production of 22,900,000 tons of CO2/year.
That turns out to be a paltry 0.0442% of global CO2 emissions. On the other hand, the production of sneakers is estimated to produce 1.2% of the global CO2 production, or 621,000,000 tons of CO2/year, or 27x more than BTC.
I realize that everyone needs sneakers, but holy crap.
It's not like people sat down, looked in an analytical manner at all the things that generate pollution in the world, started at the top of the list and that happened to be crypto-mining. The vast majority of people aren't this analytical.
People with an axe to grind against crypto are using this as the main argument to get the discussion in the mainstream, then well intentioned people who care about the environment get onboard.
Maybe the reason for the people to have an axe to grind is not entirely unrelated with pollution either, but it's probably that they have something against it, and on top of it this thing they don't like does pollute to an extent.
I read a very interesting book about how such subjects take the center stage in public discussions:
pasted_image (resized).png
Quoted from Astropin:It's not about the energy use. It's only about people thinking Bitcoin has no use.
Bitcoin is literally the best thing on this planet to advance green energy technologies. Nothing else is is close second. (Period).
Yes, I think a lot of the people that get onboard with the discussion to for that reason (running shoes have use, return on pollution not so bad - crypto has no use, infinite pollution/usage ratio).
But I still think the ones pushing the discussion on the radar in the first place do so not mainly because of the pollution issue.
Coming back to Elon, if he's not just being a troll, I could imagine he's also putting the spotlight on that issue to force people to come up with solutions, not to disparage BTC adoption.
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:I drove a buddy of mine to pick up his new Tesla on Wednesday. It was about 85 degrees outside and pretty humid. We got to the dealership and they had the huge 2 story garage doors up in the front of the building and the air conditioning on at full blast.
Wrap your head around that one.....
Let's say I play devil's advocate and go further with the Elon 4D chess theory - maybe he sees that the BTC community has the potential to come up with disrupting innovations on clean energy, but not the Air Conditioning community.
Again, I don't know, chatting for the fun of the chat...
Quoted from taylor34:Have you thought that through completely? Like really thought it through? For example, let’s say there were twenty one million houses and each one was worth one bitcoin. Population grows, now there are 42 million homes, so each is worth 1/2 a bitcoin. What happens is a deflationary spiral where nobody wants to buy anything because it’s always cheaper tomorrow.
It just wouldn’t work as long as the population is growing or producing more product. The stock market would never grow as the deflationary effects would kill any gains. In fact you’d never want to invest because a bitcoin sitting on the sidelines would gain more in value than investing it, so all investment would go to zero.
I think that's a valid argument.
However, your money is typically better off invested than buying a bunch of useless crap you don't need, yet people do buy a lot of useless crap they don't need. So I don't think "nobody wants to buy anything" is accurate.
I read this book that brings up some valid arguments like this and also "debunks" some of the decentralization arguments. I didn't like the tone of the book and a lot of it I felt was in bad faith to an extent, but still worth a read: https://www.amazon.ca/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581/ref=sr_1_2
It cost me a few 10k's because it made me sell my half of a bitcoin I had at the time.
Quoted from Pdxmonkey:Theta is the only one I can think of in video but is different than what you’re suggesting…
NFT’s could evolve into something like that. Eminem sold a beat as an NFT.
I'm pretty sure I could look this up easily but since you guys seem to know... I thought the NFT was only the proof of ownership of something, whether it's physical or digital - but are you saying that you need the key to "access" or "view" this thing as well? For instance only the person that has the key can listen to Eminem's beat?
But then after that surely nothing prevents you from recording it and distributing at will as an MP3, but there's still a single "registered" owner, right?
So I guess I'm kind of answering my own question - even if it was "key protected", people can easily get around that (for the movie, for example, record the screen itself as it plays), but the NFT is really the proof of ownership.
And to answer Taylor's question, that means it would probably have the same fate as DRM - a lot of added complexity to legit users, easily circumventable for non-legit people.
I still don't understand NFT's beyond "bragging rights" enforcement. I know people make millions off them, and I know people spend a lot of money on non-NFT bragging rights stuff in real life (boats, cars, clothing, Magic Girls, etc.) so maybe it does have a "valid" use case, but if there's anything beyond that I don't get it.
Quoted from sixtyfourbits:I'm the same way. I have a lot of friends who are really big on the future of NFT's, but I just can't get onboard yet. It's very likely that I'm missing something, but for now I'd rather spend my money on adding to my crypto bag than on NFT's.
Edit: I should say that I can see NFT's being big in the world of card collecting, videogames, and similar areas like that. But for now I mostly see the NFT marketplace flooded with random half assed graphics made by every and any Joe Blow. I think as it starts to evolve into the proper channels it will become a huge market.
Right, because again, if I stick with the "bragging rights", that doesn't mean it's not a valid use case. You can easily make a copy of a baseball card that's worth 50k, yet only the real one is worth 50k.
Quoted from Zablon:You are making the assumption that someone copies it. Wouldn't you agree that if there's only 1, and people place a value on it, it is every bit as legit as a BTC?
Kind of on the same thought as sixtyfourbits, yes, you're correct in theory but if you go with the BTC as store of value or currency proposition and you want to extend that to NFCs, it seems like money vs barter trade to me.
And obviously it's all about perception. In 2021 as a 41 year old guy I understand why two identical baseball cards would be worth 50k and 2$ depending on whether they're the "real" thing or not, but have a harder time transferring that reasoning to a digital asset. Probably not so to a 20 year old in 2031.
Quoted from Zablon:Well NFT does come basically from the old idea that digital assets are worth money - mostly from video games for over a decade. I am not saying I agree....I've always found it to be...dumb for some of the same reasons expressed here. I'm just trying to understand why people have more faith in one vs. the other.
Yeah well that's kinda what I'm saying about my age - I can't take what makes sense to me and try to apply that to what people assign value to.
These video game "assets" are a good example of that.
On the flipside, some kids would wonder why we have these huge pieces of junk hammering a big metal ball around in this static enclosed environment, break our backs moving them around and assign value to that.
Quoted from Thor-NL:Yup tough times
Doubled up on alts to to bring the cost average down, and check only once a day to feel the temp.
When you're not selling you don't lose a dime, wait it out .
(not financial advice )
Not really - that's the sunk cost fallacy. Lets say whatever you're holding is worth X at a given time. You should look at it as "where's the best place I could invest X right now" and not worry about how it got to be worth X.
If whatever fundamentals made you invest in the first place are still valid then yes you should hold and wait it out (or even double down).
On my end I'm holding to 0. I was conscious this whole thing was super risky from the start, I was up >200% at some point, now I'm down to 100% and I'm not selling anything and maybe adding a bit if I come across some liquidity.
Can someone explain real quick what the proposed bill is, what the proposed amendment was (or is) and what it all means?
It looks very negative so I don't get why crypto value has been shooting up.
Well no choice to get a bit political here - I don't know much about Ted Cruz specifically - but right leaning politics are usually about less intrusive government and less concerned about environmental issues while left leaning is the other way around.
Thus makes sense that the republican side of the aisle would be more pro-crypto.
(Caricaturing and oversimplifying here, of course)
Quoted from PhilGreg:Ok, going back to the bill itself - how come BTC is up about 4% today at this moment - given what I'm reading I'd think it would be down 20%...
Don't get too excited now Beat The Clock owners, I'm talking about Bitcoin...
I'm guessing maximalists are pretty cynical about the whole thing right? The whole point of the thing is that it's decentralized/out of government control.
And I guess in theory it still is, but it's in a weird place.
I'm guessing the reason it's all going up is that even though ATM the proposed legislation is crippling to an extent, it's also adding an aura of legitimacy and mainstreamization (spellchecker says what?! that's not a word???)
Is there a standard API that you can connect your generating algorithm to?
In other words, what triggers the code to generate the picture, and how does the code get to post it wherever it needs to be posted automatically?
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:No clue. I'd love to figure out how it works so I could make one. Most of the higher value projects seem to have a team that works on them. Artists, marketing people, developers, etc.
I don't think it's as easy as drawing some turtles, calling an API and you're done.
Well I'm a developer and I know some pretty good artists. I'm pretty sure I could write code that could generate artwork from components an artist provides me, it's just where to plug that code in that I don't understand yet.
Seems like there's some good articles on the subject, like this:
https://blog.logrocket.com/how-to-create-nfts-with-javascript/
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-make-an-nft-and-render-on-opensea-marketplace/
Will take some time to read into that.
Quoted from fosaisu:Right on. You'd want to research what the top-selling NFTs offer (how many pieces, rarity tiers, post-purchase freebies to keep everyone from dumping for a profit all at once). But 99% of this has to be knowing how to generate hype/FOMO with your target market.
Yes, I'd figured out as much. My interest is that
a-I have an certain level of interest in crypto (light interest I would say compared to many)
b-I like art (prints, gig posters, Mondo stuff, stuff like that)
c-A friend of mine is a great artist that cranks stuff out and I've had ideas over time to do prints of his stuff but never got around to it, and I can see a bit better where I can bring something to the table in a project such as this one, maybe with less necessary material than doing physical prints. I can see his style being NFT-friendly
d-Maybe...just maybe... we can make a few K out of it if it catches some life of its own by some slight chance without much or any marketing
Quoted from pninja005:This is like putting games on the Appstore. Without marketing you won't make anything unless you are very very very lucky.
Right, got it. And I guess with games your circle will install it and play with it a bit because it's pretty user-friendly, cheap and has mainstream-acceptance - which NFTs don't have at this time.
Quoted from fosaisu:You, me, and everyone else that was in middle school in the 90s. And therefore they’re worthless!
Yeah that's the catch 22 with most of this stuff.
My dad: "Can you believe I had a rookie Bobby Orr and my mom threw all my cards away when I was a teen?" (It must have been in a pretty bad shape anyway)
Yep, I can believe it, that's why the remaining ones are worth something while my 93-94 Upper Deck collection is worth nothing because at that point we knew cards could_ be worth something, so we all hung on to them, so they're worth nothing.
I had bought some Magic cards when they came out, never played 'em so they were mint. When I decided to go and have a look a few years ago I was pretty surprised to find out that some of the more boring looking ones (marshes and such) were worth a few hundred bucks. Probably more by now but I'd rather not know.
But the point is, we never bought them hoping they'd be worth something, we just bought them as playing cards.
That helium looks pretty cool.
So the premise is to build a decentralized radio-based internet? And you make money by proving that your node is active?
Looks like those Bobcats are about 1000$ Usd and Helium tokens are worth about 50$ usd. How much does one typically make per day with a basic setup?
It only uses up some electricity but is disconnected from the regular internet so no bandwidth is that correct?
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:I think I only paid around $500 for mine with shipping and transfer fees, which I have yet to receive. How much you make is anyone's guess and all depends on how many surrounding nodes there are and how many witness events you receive.
It needs connected to the Internet and they say you use about 30GB/month in data.
Ok so my assessment that it's a radio-based internet alternative is wrong then - it's just a radio-based internet hotspot then?
Here's a pretty good explanation: https://zeen.com/what-is-helium-hnt-and-how-does-helium-hntwork/
Quoted from fosaisu:Here’s one my cousin just sent me:
[quoted image]
I’m thinking whoever made this has never seen Seinfeld. Kramer definitely doesn’t know what cryptocurrency is.
He does, but has a very limited understanding of it. "It's internet money, Jerry!"
Quoted from Astropin:Glitch in the Matrix?
I like that last one though.
Please please please let it be the last one 
So guys, let's say I believe that NFTs as a concept are valid and here to stay, but I'm not really interested enough in any or most of the current projects to research what pieces to invest in, but still would like to invest in the concept in general - where does that leave me?
Buy ETH, Solana, Cardano?
Cheers!
Quoted from Pdxmonkey:The two major players are Eth and Sol. Eth is king at the moment Sol is distance second but coming up quick though.
Minor players Cardano Tezos RMRK Loopring Veve Avalanche Enjin Polygon Waxx, EOS is about to launch a market place too, sure there’s few more I forgot. Most of these have more functions than just NFTs but a couple are exclusive to only NFTs.
Bigger risks but also rewards in minors.
You look like you're one of the ones that are pretty knowledgeable about the whole deal... let's say I had a loose 1k that I wanted to put on the ones with more potential upside but more risk, what would that be (let's say out of Tezos RMRK Loopring Veve Avalanche Enjin Polygon Waxx, EOS)?
Quoted from Pdxmonkey:That’s a tough question because I don’t know what your risk tolerance is…
EOS has big move potential but it’s pretty high risk because idk anyone that uses it. ADA has bleed out a lot already so the risk is lower. Loopring is GME’s NFT platform. When the rumor into news broke it went from .50 to 3.00 real fast…
Tough time right now too with tax harvest season on top of Biden’s covid announcement tomorrow. Could get messy but those are usually good times to buy.
I have some cash ready to go but haven’t bought much this week. Except for some odd ball NFTs
Ok, so let's say I told you "here's 1k, buy something", what would that be? EOS? (Notice the number isn't 10k, nor 50k)
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere about asking for financial advice from some guy with a monkey picture on the internet, but I'm not sure if they said whether to do it or not...
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:I'd be asking what you're trying to accomplish. If you ask 5 of us that are frequent posters in this thread, I bet you'd get 5 different answers. Are you trying for a "hit an run", planning to HODL or maybe something that you can stake? What's your risk tolerance?
No hurry, again I believe in the long term viability of NFTs so I guess a 3-5 year outlook would be good (I know 3-5 years is not really "long" term - the only stuff I hold for real long term is BTC).
The reason I'm saying 1k is that I'm saying pretty high risk tolerance. I don't care about my 1k turning into 3k 5 years from now, so I'm looking for some... "hey I'm gonna go check what my XXX is worth now - 
HOLY CRAP" or "oh well, it's worth 0" stuff.
Quoted from Pdxmonkey:Ah sounds like you’re looking for a moon bag.
Max reward max risk and NFT based…
EOS Or Wax maybe Loopring if you think GME will thrive.
However
I think Sol or Avalanche would be a better buy than some moon bags.
Ok, thanks for the shortlist. I'll go read a bit on each one of these and make up my mind.
Hey guys, if we get back on the currency topic, I'm curious to know what you think about the BTC drop.
My rationale in investing in BTC is that I buy in into the store of value use case as a potential replacement for gold and others. So when there's inflation, the stock market crashes, etc. I would expect it to go up, not down.
So what gives?
pasted_image (resized).png
pasted_image (resized).png
So am I reading this wrong or is that government-speak for "decentralized cryptos will be made illegal, the central bank digital currency will be the only allowed future of digital currency?"
Is there any way that announcement does not result in a crypto-crash?
I think that's the thing with word salad, you can interpret pretty much any which way, by design.
Time will tell!
Quoted from Pdxmonkey:Couple banks failing
People wanting to store their money somewhere safe? Not necessarily safe value-wise but not at risk of being insolvent.
Quoted from Astropin:Mildly interesting:
[quoted image]
Holy crap my 9 year old will be 50 ft tall by the time she's 40 
Quoted from Astropin:I mean, that's funny...but your child isn't a new technology undergoing adoption.
If only that were true... 
Hey I'm on this thread too, I'm onboard as well but I don't think this trend argument holds any water. There's a million things that have this kind of trend if you look at them over a given period, but that doesn't mean they're an exponential explosion waiting to happen.
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Québec, QC