The crypto thread

[uppi]

It seems reasonable to me that we can say that until said QC is build nobody actually knows. In the meanwhile we trust who we deem reliable. Forbes and WSJ and Bloomberg seem pretty reliable on business related tech news or at lest more reliable than most other sources.

There is mathematical proof that the elliptic curves cryptography used by bitcoin is vulnerable to quantum computers. Shor's algorithm has been tested on real quantum computers (albeit very small ones). There is little room for "nobody actually knows". The only open questions are if and when a capable quantum computer can be realized.

The sources may be reliable, but they are still journalists. They will never have the same understanding of the topic as the scientists in their specific fields.

 

[warpus]

You conflated (or confused) price and value.

That does make sense at first glance, but I googled it and (bolding mine)

Economic value is the measurement of the benefit derived from a good or service to an individual or a company. Economic value can also be the maximum price or amount of money that someone is willing to pay for a good or service. As a result, economic value can be higher than market value.

it seems there are multiple ways to determine value. But it could also be the internet lying to me. Perhaps there is a difference between value and economic value, although when dealing with a financial system it seems to make sense to look at economic value

 

[Anysense]

There are several people in a shop. Prices are the same for everybody but every item on sale has different value for each person in the shop. Kinda simple... But stock market is a different world, of course. It is a horrible mess where nobody is quite sure about value of anything to anyone. Hence permanent chaos with prices going up and down by dozens of % overnight because of Musk's tweets.

 

[Hygro]

There are several people in a shop. Prices are the same for everybody but every item on sale has different value for each person in the shop. Kinda simple... But stock market is a different world, of course. It is a horrible mess where nobody is quite sure about value of anything to anyone. Hence permanent chaos with prices going up and down by dozens of % overnight because of Musk's tweets.

In that sense, what meaning does value have? Is it not just the expectation of later prices?

 

[warpus]

So basically all the people who have invested in bitcoin see value in it, while the rest of humanity can be split into two groups: A) sees value in bitcoin but hasn't invested or B) sees no value in bitcoin

and this value is different from the other economic value, which is the market value. Roger and over

 

[RobAnybody]

You conflated (or confused) price and value.

No, I disagree. Especially as one who deals with collectibles frequently. The value of the comic "New Mutants #98" (1st appearance of Deadpool) in 9.8 condition (as valued by a 3rd party) is exactly: "what someone is willing to pay for it". It has no intrinsic value.

The "price" was USD $1.00, back in 1991, when it was first released. That was its price. Its "value", now, is nearly USD $2,000 .

The value of a collectible is what people are willing to pay for it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

There are several people in a shop. Prices are the same for everybody but every item on sale has different value for each person in the shop. Kinda simple... But stock market is a different world, of course. It is a horrible mess where nobody is quite sure about value of anything to anyone. Hence permanent chaos with prices going up and down by dozens of % overnight because of Musk's tweets.

The stock market is tied to different market segment goals: institutional buyers, short term buyers, long term buyers. Each of those can have a variety of goals too. Much of the volatility is because of short term profit taking strategies. Those who buy and hold for the long term mostly ignore the weekly ups and downs. Panic sellers who respond to some "bad news" can drive a market down for the bottom feeders to drive right back up again. As a long termer, I prefer to pay attention to the 1,3, 5, and longer trends and ignore short term volatility. If you look at the 5 year and longer S&P and Total market trends, there is little to no chaos at all.

 

[Anysense]

No, I disagree. Especially as one who deals with collectibles frequently. The value of the comic "New Mutants #98" (1st appearance of Deadpool) in 9.8 condition (as valued by a 3rd party) is exactly: "what someone is willing to pay for it". It has no intrinsic value.

The "price" was USD $1.00, back in 1991, when it was first released. That was its price. Its "value", now, is nearly USD $2,000 .

The value of a collectible is what people are willing to pay for it.

This is all fine, but what do you disagree about?

The stock market is tied to different market segment goals: institutional buyers, short term buyers, long term buyers. Each of those can have a variety of goals too. Much of the volatility is because of short term profit taking strategies. Those who buy and hold for the long term mostly ignore the weekly ups and downs. Panic sellers who respond to some "bad news" can drive a market down for the bottom feeders to drive right back up again. As a long termer, I prefer to pay attention to the 1,3, 5, and longer trends and ignore short term volatility. If you look at the 5 year and longer S&P and Total market trends, there is little to no chaos at all.

Yes, exactly what I meant: in a period of less than a year everything is usually very messy.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, exactly what I meant: in a period of less than a year everything is usually very messy.

And it is easy to avoid the mess by mostly ignoring the short term volatility. I will admit through that for some, it is how they make money and they enjoy the daily rush!

 

[Samson]

If you look at the 5 year and longer S&P and Total market trends, there is little to no chaos at all.

As I understand it (which is not very much) the stock market is a classic example of a chaotic system.

 

[RobAnybody]

You conflated (or confused) price and value.

This is all fine, but what do you disagree about?

The first quote. Maybe I misunderstood your point though.

 

[Birdjaguar]

As I understand it (which is not very much) the stock market is a classic example of a chaotic system.

Paywalled...

 

[Samson]

Paywalled...

You get the abstracts, right? Sci Hub is your friend if you want the full papers. TL;DR is they use chaos theory to model the stock market.

 

[Anysense]

The first quote. Maybe I misunderstood your point though.

Well, you stated quite plainly that value is what people are willing to pay for something, i.e. its price. I'm rather inclined to think that value of something is the reason people are willing to pay for it.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Ordinary schlubs like me, don’t understand the calculations and “wallets” and “open-source ledgers” and whatever else goes into it.

A friend of mine tried to explain it to me. This is a revolution! The future is blockchain. What does that mean? Well, buy it low and sell it high. How does it work? Blockchain!

ＢＬＯＣＫＣＨＡＩＮ

It is just a scam.
Look, I have proof.

Minecraft NFT Game "Blockverse" Evaporates With $1 Million | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Rug pulls (the term coined for when blockchain-based projects disappear with users' funds) are a constant of the daily blockchain life - in 2021, around 3,300 projects pulled rugs on their users, stealing approximately $7 billion worth of investor's money.
Rug pulls work in much the same way that snake-oil sellers did back in the day: promising a product but not delivering it; cue the charlatan running away with his clichéd dollar-marked bag of money.

 

[warpus]

This is why "get rich quick" schemes by buying into dog coins can be dangerous. It's the wild west out there. Don't invest in something you haven't done a lot of research on. Even somebody as knowledgeable about investments as Mark Cuban lost $50k (and probably more that he didn't report) on a DEFI rugpull.

Diversify and make sure the majority of your investments are in less risky ventures. Even Bitcoin and Ethereum are a lot less risky than some of the others

First thing you should be checking are the audits, and even those can easily miss a rugpull. Make sure they've been done by reputable auditors. Then look at the team building whatever you're investing in. Who are they? Do they have a solid track record? Even if 99% of the team is reputable one rogue dev could screw you over. So there's always risk.

In the end, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And even if it feels perfectly safe, you never know.

 

[Samson]

Crypto is less about crime than fiat currency

The majority of cryptocurrency is not used for criminal activity. According to an excerpt from Chainalysis’ 2021 report, in 2019, criminal activity represented 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume (roughly $21.4 billion worth of transfers). In 2020, the criminal share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34% ($10.0 billion in transaction volume).

According to the UN, it is estimated that between 2% and 5% of global GDP ($1.6 to $4 trillion) annually is connected with money laundering and illicit activity.​

 

[warpus]

Using crypto for crime seems like a hassle. Heck, using crypto for anything still seems like a hassle. The tech still has a ways to go before becoming more user friendly and accepted around the world as a genuine way to do business. It's still a lot easier to use $$ or the Euro or Ruble, whether you're a criminal or fancy businessman in a fancy suit and tie, or both.

 

[Samson]

Using crypto for crime seems like a hassle. Heck, using crypto for anything still seems like a hassle. The tech still has a ways to go before becoming more user friendly and accepted around the world as a genuine way to do business. It's still a lot easier to use $$ or the Euro or Ruble, whether you're a criminal or fancy businessman in a fancy suit and tie, or both.

I do not know. Buying drugs on the internet sure seems pretty easy. I am a bit amazed that as lockdowns gave a lot of people incentive to use these methods that the absolute amount of criminal cryptocurrency activity went down.

 

[warpus]

Here in Canada at least marijuana aficionados have been buying illegal product using $$ and credit cards, bank accounts, paypal, etc. for years now.

I suppose maybe there'd be more of an interest in using crypto for something like that if you are importing a large amount of a more illegal sort of substance or something? Drug dealers seem to like dollar bills though, but maybe I'm just saying that because of all the drug cartel movies and TV shows that always show drug dealers with large stacks of bills