The crypto thread

What do you prefer?

  • Bitcoin

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • Ethereum

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Binance Coin

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cardano

    Votes: 1 3.2%
  • Fiat

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Go away, I deal in coke and gold bars

    Votes: 14 45.2%
  • Privacy coins

    Votes: 1 3.2%

  • Total voters
    31
  • Poll closed .

Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, wants to solve all it’s legal troubles by getting rid of fiat currency trading facilities! Usually, SEC order to freeze assets means that the exchange (or a bank) in question stops functioning immediately. That didn’t happen, because Binance is crypto-centric, offshore and scarcely uses channels over which SEC exerts control. SEC actions were very clearly engineered to trigger a massive crypto bank run. And they still might. The fight between crypto industry and traditional finance escalated to a new level on the 6th of June. I think it’s only the beginning - Binance (probably) houses rat holes for all known and unknown illegal operations in the world. They don’t ask where you got the money from. SEC also can’t back down. It’s mandate is to maintain lawful order in financial sphere.

So, what do You think is going to happen? Massive bank run away from exchanges into secure wallets? Changpeng Zhao (Binance CEO) wakes up in Guantanamo one day?

Whichever way it goes, I don’t think this story can end well.

5 months later, and the answer is GUILTY!
PAY $4 billion (USD) :mwaha::mwaha::mwaha:


Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has resigned as CEO of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange after agreeing to plead guilty to money laundering violations, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.

The DOJ's settlement concludes a three-year investigation into Binance that found "willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform," Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote in a statement. According to the plea agreement, Zhao will pay a $50 million fine, and Binance—which also pled guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and violating sanctions against Iran, Cuba, and Syria—will pay a $4.3 billion fine.
 
A good day for the lawyers at least

Cristiano Ronaldo faces $1bn lawsuit over Binance ads

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a class action lawsuit in the US over his promotion of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

In November 2022, Binance announced its first "CR7" collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in partnership with Ronaldo, which the footballer said would reward fans "for all the years of support".

The cheapest NFT from the collection was priced at $77 when it went on sale - but one year later, it was priced at about $1.

Mercedes F1 and MLB Implicated in FTX Promotional Fraud Lawsuit

A new legal challenge has emerged for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team and Major League Baseball (MLB), as they find themselves entangled in a lawsuit related to the crypto exchange FTX. This lawsuit, filed by a group of FTX users, accuses both organizations of contributing to the alleged fraud perpetrated by FTX through their promotional agreements.

In 2021, Mercedes F1 entered into a promotional agreement with FTX, leading to the crypto exchange's logo featuring prominently on team cars, uniforms, hats, and other merchandise. Similarly, MLB made history the same year by becoming the first professional sports league to sign a deal with FTX. This deal included the display of FTX.US patches on all MLB umpire uniforms, a first-of-its-kind occurrence in the league's history dating back to the 1800s.
 

Every Bitcoin payment 'uses a swimming pool of water'​

Every Bitcoin transaction uses, on average, enough water to fill "a back yard swimming pool", a new study suggests.

That's around six million times more than is used in a typical credit card swipe, Alex de Vries of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, calculates.

The figure is due to the water used to power and cool the millions of computers worldwide Bitcoin relies on.

It comes as many regions struggle with fresh water shortages.

Up to three billion people worldwide already experience water shortages, a situation which is expected to worsen in the coming decades, the study notes.

"This is happening in Central Asia, but it's also happening in the US, especially around California. And that's only going to get worse as climate change gets worse," Mr de Vries told the BBC.

In total, bitcoin consumed nearly 1,600 billion litres - also known as gigalitres (GL) - of water in 2021, the study, published in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability, suggests.

It says the 2023 figure could be more than 2,200 GL.

Thirsty work​

The main reason Bitcoin uses so much water is because it relies on an enormous amount of computing power, which in turn needs huge amounts of electricity.

Bitcoin is so power hungry it uses only marginally less electricity than the entire country of Poland, according to figures from Cambridge University.

Water is used to cool the gas and coal-fired plants that provide that much of our power. And large amounts of water are lost through evaporation from the reservoirs that supply hydroelectric plants.

Some water is also used to cool the millions of computers around the world on which Bitcoin transactions rely.

Mr de Vries argues that Bitcoin does not need to use this much water - singling out the power hungry process at its heart, which is known as "Bitcoin mining."

In simple terms, miners audit transactions in exchange for an opportunity to acquire the digital currency.

But they compete against each other to complete that audit first - meaning the same transaction is being worked on many times over, by multiple powerful and power hungry computers.

"You have millions of devices around the world, constantly competing with each other in a massive game of what I like to describe as 'guess the number'," Mr de Vries told the BBC.

"All of these machines combined are generating 500 quintillion guesses every second of the day, non stop - that is 500 with 18 zeros behind it."

This method is known as "proof of work". But a change to the way Bitcoin works could cut the electricity use and hence water consumption dramatically.

The major cryptocurrency Ethereum did this in Sep 2022, moving to a system called "proof of stake", reducing its power-use by more than 99% in the process.

That may not be straightforward though, according to Prof James Davenport, of the University of Bath.

"[It was] only possible because the management of Ethereum is significantly more centralised than that of Bitcoin," he told the BBC.

Nonetheless, others say the findings of this research are worrying.

Dr Larisa Yarovaya, associate professor of finance at the University of Southampton, she said the use of freshwater for Bitcoin mining, particularly in regions already grappling with water scarcity, "should be a cause for concern among regulators and the public".
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67564205
 
How much electricity gamers use? How much water wasted on cooling gas and coal plants across the planet because those pesky screen gazers like to play civ instead of donating water to Africa? Very worrying.

Spoiler Data :
According to the latest data, there are approximately 3.09 billion active video gamers worldwide. (Google)
 
Does anyone, but maybe I guess I'd like @Samson to weigh in, no offense to anyone else, have any theory on how crypto prices reflect crypto news?

I've caught up on this thread, & it's nothing but negative & negative & negative & oh... also, btw, the sky is falling news. But prices are up quite a bit from just 6 months ago.

I have said many times before I just view this as a speculative asset, like comics or Pokemon cards or [say it with me, starts with B, ends with -abies], so while I'm certainly enjoying my 3 whole Etheriums going up in value, I'm baffled here by all the negative news vs the increased prices. Any insights as to how the bad press just doesn't seem to matter?
 
I have said many times before I just view this as a speculative asset, like comics or Pokemon cards or [say it with me, starts with B, ends with -abies], so while I'm certainly enjoying my 3 whole Etheriums going up in value, I'm baffled here by all the negative news vs the increased prices. Any insights as to how the bad press just doesn't seem to matter?

Asset speculation is pure gambling on "what you think others will do". That's the only rationality that counts for speculation. And everyone wants to believe others will keep bidding prices up.

Or, attempting to say something more useful, people keep gabling with cryptocrap because they have the funds and it's "easy". It will not sink on rational analysis of how fraudulent it is. It will sink, together with the other asset bubbles, on a real economic crisis where the "liquidity" to gamble dries. The next 2008-scale credit contraction. Governments have kept inflating debt when the "private sector" faltered, crisis gets postponed.. The world may be heading into one caused by a politically-driven breakdown on international trade. May. Few people will want to detonate one.
 
Does anyone, but maybe I guess I'd like @Samson to weigh in, no offense to anyone else, have any theory on how crypto prices reflect crypto news?

I've caught up on this thread, & it's nothing but negative & negative & negative & oh... also, btw, the sky is falling news. But prices are up quite a bit from just 6 months ago.

I have said many times before I just view this as a speculative asset, like comics or Pokemon cards or [say it with me, starts with B, ends with -abies], so while I'm certainly enjoying my 3 whole Etheriums going up in value, I'm baffled here by all the negative news vs the increased prices. Any insights as to how the bad press just doesn't seem to matter?
I am really hesitant to give any descriptive or predictive comments, I do not really know what I am talking about and it all seems so irrational, but that may be me.

However, with any asset price the reaction to the news is always in context not in comparison to "if nothing happened" but in comparison to expectations. Binance got hammered, but were allowed to keep operating. This shows that people expected worse.
 
I hadn't been checking for quite a while, but decided to check: Bitcoin: $36,409; Etherium: $1953

As always, I have no idea what's going on. But, Beanie Coins are up quite a bit this year?
I've been updating prices every 3 (or 6 last post) months, but something weird is going on. That /\ post was 11/17. As of today, 12/5: Bitcoin: $43,773.62; Etherium: $2,281.48.

Anyone got any explanations? As in, 'this is dumb, ignore it (most likely)'; or, 'this [poop] is randomly skyrocketing again, so get in for no good reason'? Or better yet [some logical explanation].

Everything is going up, even SHIBA (my "screw you guys I'm going home" plan if it ever really takes off :) ).
 
I am sure it is "dumb", for some values of dumb. Some reasons I could make up:
  • I am sure the "binance did not get hammered like it could have" is a very big part of it. Binance is still operating, stable coins still exist, the CFTC had more to do with binance than the SEC.
  • The blackrock ETF is going to get the go ahead. Now that is really dumb.
  • Other assets look a whole lot riskier than they did. Even US government debt is being downgraded. It is perhaps little surprise that things that have very different risk profiles are doing well.
One point I would add. It is not everything that is going up madly. One(s?) with real world utility in transfers of value are reasonably stable as their economics are dictated by the real world.
Spoiler 'Stable' cryptocurrency :
5JL9Fea.png

Spoiler 'Unstable' cryptocurrency :
IEpSO1o.png
 
  • The blackrock ETF is going to get the go ahead. Now that is really dumb.

Aside from being dumb, ETF's are one of the big logical reasons for euphoria. There has been a long list of crypto futures/ETF's waiting for SEC to approve them. Few big money managers (Fidelity, ARK Invest, Black Rock) filed with the SEC a while ago, and recently, as Kathie Wood alluded to in an interview "there have been positive noises. The SEC actually started communicating with managers waiting in line, asking for amendments to their original filings".

Why is it important? Many have viewed crypto as inflation hedge for a while - it has been part of the initial message. But to become inflation hedge one needs liquidity. To have liquidity big sharks need to Know they won't hang on a random tree for investing client funds into this cesspool of drug/corruption money. Traditionally, money manager kept trillions on the sidelines - on the money market, in cash, in gold, other commodities, forex.

Total crypto market cap - $1.5 trillion.

daily forex turnover is ±10 trillion dollars.

Berkshire Hathaway is currently sitting on a pile of $147 billion. etc, because managers "don't see anything good to buy on the market" (paraphrasing)

If there is ever green light from the SEC - there's going to be avalanche of squeaky clean money pouring into all sorts of crypto, but mainly into BTC & ETH.

That's the narrative, anyway. I don't know if managers will actually pour funds into crypto ETF's, once those go live. I don't know if clients will allow/enable managers to pour money into crypto ETF's, instead of using traditional hedging instruments. I do think there's grain of truth to that dynamic, given the worldwide pool of idle moneys, but the extent of potential upside is unknowable.

Many people prefer ETF's these days. As quick and dirty method to get safe and balanced exposure to whole countries, industry slices, etc.

EDIT:

Some advocates say that financial advisers, pension funds and other money managers - a pool of capital estimated to total around $46.5 trillion by Boston Consulting Group - could be a significant source of demand for a spot bitcoin ETF.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/...itcoin-etfs-aim-whip-up-us-demand-2023-10-31/
 
Last edited:
Aside from being dumb, ETF's are one of the big logical reasons for euphoria. There has been a long list of crypto futures/ETF's waiting for SEC to approve them. Few big money managers (Fidelity, ARK Invest, Black Rock) filed with the SEC a while ago, and recently, as Kathie Wood alluded to in an interview "there have been positive noises. The SEC actually started communicating with managers waiting in line, asking for amendments to their original filings".

Why is it important? Many have viewed crypto as inflation hedge for a while - it has been part of the initial message. But to become inflation hedge one needs liquidity. To have liquidity big sharks need to Know they won't hang on a random tree for investing client funds into this cesspool of drug/corruption money. Traditionally, money manager kept trillions on the sidelines - on the money market, in cash, in gold, other commodities, forex.

Total crypto market cap - $1.5 trillion.

daily forex turnover is ±10 trillion dollars.

Berkshire Hathaway is currently sitting on a pile of $147 billion. etc, because managers "don't see anything good to buy on the market" (paraphrasing)

If there is ever green light from the SEC - there's going to be avalanche of squeaky clean money pouring into all sorts of crypto, but mainly into BTC & ETH.

That's the narrative, anyway. I don't know if managers will actually pour funds into crypto ETF's, once those go live. I don't know if clients will allow/enable managers to pour money into crypto ETF's, instead of using traditional hedging instruments. I do think there's grain of truth to that dynamic, given the worldwide pool of idle moneys, but the extent of potential upside is unknowable.

Many people prefer ETF's these days. As quick and dirty method to get safe and balanced exposure to whole countries, industry slices, etc.
The argument would be not that the ETFs are inherently sensible, but that the SEC giving the green light to the ETFs is a pretty good indication that people buying BTC is not actually going to end up being a crime? That does make a certain amount of sense.
 
So let me get this right; they are going to try to keep the crypto scam going by having captured
regulators permit captured pension fund managers to lose your pension in scam space.
 
Well, either that or some other benevolent power will attract the crypto infrastructure elsewhere to trim the scam coupons and control them. There have been developments in that regard: El Salvador, Switzerland, Singapore, Lithuania (home of largest crypto exchange on the planet), Gibraltar, Bahamas, ... I could go on, the point is - if the Americans won't get there in time, someone else surely will. So, if you can't defeat it - control it. That's political reasoning.

As for economics: The managers seldom see beyond the norm of profitability. To them it's an exciting new project to ride on through repeating waves of public curiosity.
 
Late Charlie Munger, co manager of Berkshire, one of the largest funds in the world, had nothing but disdain for crypto. Called it rat poison, crypto ****, and so much more. :)

He died of natural causes a week ago, a month away from his 100th birthday, which would be 1st January 2024.

Here's a 5 minute dive into his position on the subject:

 
Any insights as to how the bad press just doesn't seem to matter?

The news corp is a 12 headed hydra. Hard to tell for anyone, which pieces matter and which ones don't in an ever shifting eye of public interest, provided you Only look at the news. There's a similar problem in traditional finance. Opposing torrents of negativity and positivity far exceeding, in intensity, what we have in crypto space. As you know, at any given day I can throw in a dozen fresh news about impending doom of Apple Inc, and another dozen news of early innings of inevitable 10x+ journey to the moon. This is a weak method of analysing viability of any product, service, currency or company in general.

A more precise method to gauge real interest hidden within the differential in potential of information torrents, would be to analyse volume of trading, the price of the asset as a reflection of underlying economic shifts and technological advancements or lack thereof within the field of interest. Also, near-term forecasting is nearly always flawed. Flawed, because, as Benjamin Graham put it: "in the short term stock market is the betting machine, in the long term it is a voting machine." Quantum analogies, their inherent randomness come to mind when I type this, but of course those are limited to sub-atomic particles and shouldn't necessarily be applicable to larger things, which we are discussing. To be fair, quantum principles are applicable to cryptography, but I digress. :)

To see what I mean by "analysing volume" as a factor of overall picture,have a look at ETH price/volume chart:
Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 20.38.38.png


The bar chart at the bottom is the value, in dollars, of 24-hour cycle of trades. As you can see, in 2020-2021 the real interest in ethereum spiked, the global economy spiked, and as a result the underlying value of trades was quite high. Notice how in January 2023 volume of trades fell off a cliff, 90% down by my rough estimation. Driven, primarily, by the grand devaluation of the world's stock markets. It means that 90% of people representing real leverage simply got tired and/or distracted, they moved on to greener pastures for a million reasons that they had. At that point no amount of positivity, or negativity for that matter, could save ETH from remaining an afterthought in the minds of wealthy investors that matter. Retail investors, you and I, don't matter, but institutional investors (Goldman Sachs) do matter. The job of retail investors and miners was to keep crypto afloat during the crypto winter, but they couldn't influence price much up or down with the amounts of cash they had at their disposal.

Today the crypto brotherhood/financial regulators are trying to sell the idea of exchange-traded funds, as a protected gateway, platform for crypto people and normal people to interact. Well, the price rose in response, trading volume has picked up somewhat (last few months), so some of the big ones are coming back in anticipation of positive effects from ETF adoption.

So, I guess, we'll have to wait and see whether there is enough fire in crypto hearts to stage another technological advancement - intertwining real sectors of the economy this time around within the new digital medium. It's those news we have to watch out for, only those have value for you as a retail investor. Not cries "to the moon", or "to hell with it".

These cries are still relevant and welcome as a part of this thread, as this is an overall good tendency, which prevents from falling into positive or negative dogmatism.
 
So, um, some of you keep mentioning ETFs, & how they affect the market, & how Blackrock is getting the go ahead, & how there might be a green light...

I mean I, like, totally know what an ETF is of course, but could y'all explain it to, um, other people, in case they are curious? :mischief:
 
So, um, some of you keep mentioning ETFs, & how they affect the market, & how Blackrock is getting the go ahead, & how there might be a green light...

I mean I, like, totally know what an ETF is of course, but could y'all explain it to, um, other people, in case they are curious? :mischief:
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a company that buys, sells and holds "stuff" and is traded on the stock market. The idea is that it has the same risk profile as the "stuff" but is traded like a stock.

For many things, like "generic tech stock" or "government debt" you can see how the trust required in a third party and the fees could be worth the convenience of not having to do the detailed transactions yourself.

I just do not understand how one could believe both that bitcoin is a valuable tool for commerce in the future and that it is so difficult that an sophisticated economic actor has to delegate their trust to a third party to buy, sell and hold it.
 
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