How do you decide which crypto currency to buy?

Any Coinbase users? I’ve noticed ever since they binned off Pro and introduced Advanced, the fees have increased. Is that just how it is now?

Nearly 20% – 1/5th of the value of everything you’ve ever worked for. 

Not exactly, champ…especially if you’ve got a fixed rate mortgage.

@politecameraaction – so you’ve £200,000 equity in your house. If inflation was running at target – 2% – then in the last couple of years your house would really be worth £192,080 (compound). Lets say inflation’s run at 14% for the last couple of years – it’s worth £172,980 in real money. That’s a big old chunk isn’t it.**

If your lifetime investments haven’t outstripped inflation then they’re worth at lot less too. And that’s lifetime investments – not just the crap you’ve stashed in the last couple of years.

If, as Einstein said, tongue in cheek “compound interest is the most powerful force in the Universe” – then compounding high inflation is the flip coin of that.

**Edit: Yep, you could say house prices have risen by maybe 7%. But then – what about if the pound is being devalued by inflation and house prices fall too? That’s a double kick in the nuts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65774620

Any Coinbase users?

Well they have to pay for the legal defence against the SEC somehow.

A mate of mine is convinced it’s always a 4yr cycle. Hold on tight and load up then there’ll be another bull run. Probably exactly the same as saying “it’ll land in black soon, it’ll land on black soon.”

Well, he’s right. Or rather, based on past experience, he’s right (which is, of course, no guarantee of future performance).

It’s not exactly four years, btw. It’s based around the halfings (the point where the BTC rewards are reduced by half every time 210,000 blocks are mined):

https://www.blockchaincenter.net/en/bitcoin-rainbow-chart/

The returns on each halfing cycle have been less each time. And for the first time the price in the current cycle dipped dipped below the price at the peak in the previous cycle so possibly the period of being able to make huge profits by loading up in the dips and selling during the peaks has passed.

Saying that, I’d expect some sort of pump around 2025 if, for no other reason, everyone will be expecting the price to pump.

Yeah, chevychase, the problem with your analysis is that you’re simultaneously imagining the price of everything changes (inflation or deflation) but also the price of assets remains static. And that’s just not true.

Litecoin is up 46% over the last year.

I’m still dabbling, but only buying the major crypto through Paypal now as other trading apps seem dodgier than the coins! 🙂

I still have coins in Kraken though.

Inflation since 2020? Nearly 50% – half of the value of everything you’ve ever shilled for. Down to Bitcoin being a terrible f****** idea

Bitcoin “inflation” by the same measure is running at 50%* over the last 2 financial years….

*Actually it’s a lot higher as that’s purely looking at how many pounds you could buy with it, and as you said, those aren’t worth what they were 2 years ago either.

It’s not exactly four years, btw. It’s based around the halfings (the point where the BTC rewards are reduced by half every time 210,000 blocks are mined):

And you consider monitory policy that aims for 2% and accidentally hit 10% inflation is bad? But this is good?

Hate to say it, but it sounds like you’re exact the sort of disaster capitalist you seem to hate.

And you consider monitory policy that aims for 2% and accidentally hit 10% inflation is bad? But this is good?

Hate to say it, but it sounds like you’re exact the sort of disaster capitalist you seem to hate.

I’ve not really got any strong opinions about whether BTC or crypto in general is a good thing or not. I think the first thing to do is establish what it is.

It’s clearly a thing that has a lot of potential but potential for what exactly is not entirely clear. The most obvious is that it has the potential to eliminate the need for an intermediary currency and simply issue units of currency based on the thing itself, whether that’s your attention (in the case of BAT) or providing network coverage (in the case of Helium).

I could be completely wrong and it turns out to be something else. I’ve said before, Crypto is at the internet in 1997 stage at the moment. The only thing it seems to be good for porn and money.

I don’t think many people could have predicted just how ubiquitous the internet would be in 2023.

It’s a thing and I think it’s going to change the world. In some ways that change will be good and in some it will be bad. That’s the nature of change but the only thing I know is there is very little point in wailing against a change that’s coming.

Or maybe the whole thing is just Tulips. However, Tulips went up and then crashed. They didn’t go through multiple cycles over the course of a decade.

Anyway, I understand enough about crypto to know how little I understand. Anyone who knows where it is going, ie to the moon or to crash, burn and disappear forever, only holds that opinion because they simply do not understand it at all.

@politecameraaction

Yeah, chevychase, the problem with your analysis is that you’re simultaneously imagining the price of everything changes (inflation or deflation) but also the price of assets remains static. And that’s just not true.

You didn’t read the post dude. I didn’t say assets remain static – I specifically addressed that point. But I’ll add to my argument – most people are asset-poor.

@thisisnotaspoon

And you consider monitory policy that aims for 2% and accidentally hit 10% inflation is bad?

What’s accidental about it? We’ve been printing money since the 2008 financial crash. The net result of that policy was always going to be massive inflation – and an erosion in the value of all the wealth you’ve ever earned. A significant erosion. (On top of a decline in living standards in Blighty for the last 15 years that’s a kick in the nuts).

Bitcoin was invented precisely because of a need to deny governments/central banks the ability to devalue our wealth – and therefore the value of all the hours of backbreaking work we’ve put in over our lifetimes – simply “because” – because history shows that they don’t do it for the plebs, they do it to keep the wealthy in hookers and coke.

Without that ability then the economy would be subject to market forces rather than idiotic government policy. And I can take knowing things are massively more expensive because bad weather has hit crops rather than our governments decided to print money and hand it to the ultra-rich, massively expanding their wealth whilst the vast majority of people get poorer.

Let me ask you this – do you feel our economy is really delivering for you? NHS getting better, living standards on the up, more free time to spend with your family, as was the promise of our dominant economic ideology?

Bitcoin was invented precisely because of a need to deny governments/central banks the ability to devalue our wealth

And how exactly would you define mining / halving?

One is giving a load of rich people the ability to print money (whilst burning through a shit-ton of energy as it turned out). The other is manipulating how much that money (and by extension the money in your digital pocket) is worth. It’s all the bad bits of QE, without even knowing who’s benefiting (or it propping up the economy).

All your touted benefits of avoiding government interference could just as easily come from using any other commodity/asset as a currency, with all the wild instability that would also bring without a ‘standard’ (gold or otherwise). Although at least if we were all paid in energy futures, coffee beans of wheat at leas you could point to something vaguely physical.

most people are asset-poor.

and an erosion in the value of all the wealth you’ve ever earned.

Which is it? The lasagna I spent my wages on two years ago today hasn’t lost 20% of it’s value. It’d be nice if it did, I’d be a bit thinner.

Like 99% of people I probably spend almost all my money on “things”, whether that’s food, bikes or bricks and mortar. Most people don’t have “assets” because they’re not a tiktok financial influencer trying to sell the concept of generational wealth.

Even pensions for those of us lucky enough to have one will generally always outstrip inflation because the companies they’re investing in will also grow with inflation. If food goes up 10%, Tesco’s turnover and profit go up 10%*, it’s shares go up 10% and thus does however much of my pension pot some suit in the home counties has invested in them.

*ish, hypothetically-ish, and you get the general idea but this isn’t a sound economic model-ish

One is giving a load of rich people the ability to print money (whilst burning through a shit-ton of energy as it turned out). The other is manipulating how much that money (and by extension the money in your digital pocket) is worth. It’s all the bad bits of QE, without even knowing who’s benefiting (or it propping up the economy).

I think the advantage is that the mechanism is known and the data is available to anyone who knows how to look. And it’s not really complicated so literally anyone could, with minimum study, build a tool to monitor the data.

Very different to the secretive high level decisions taken to ‘adjust and stabilise’ the Fiat system. No amount of studying or building tools is going to give you the ability to monitor that data. For that you need contacts and lots of money (so that you can get more money at the expense of the people who don’t have money and contacts).

All your touted benefits of avoiding government interference could just as easily come from using any other commodity/asset as a currency, with all the wild instability that would also bring without a ‘standard’ (gold or otherwise). Although at least if we were all paid in energy futures, coffee beans of wheat at leas you could point to something vaguely physical.

Yes, you could use another commodity. The problem is, how do you know who owns the gold? Who controls the database that tells you how much gold everyone has?

People write off crypto by saying, ‘It’s just a database.’ I find that argument hilarious.

The entirety of western civilisation is built on databases. Databases determine who owns what. The person who controls the database (or controls access to the database) is going to be rich. There is no question about that.

What Satoshi did was to create a system that decentralises control of the databases.

Decentralising control of the databases is possibly the single biggest change to the foundation of our civilisation since the first databases were created in ancient Sumner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Uses_and_implications_of_writing

The implications of this aren’t yet clear but, imo, it’s going to result in fundamental changes to our society. I’m not sure what but it’s why I spend a lot of time looking at what’s happening and trying to figure out what direction things are going in.

If that knowledge helps me make a profit then I’m happy with that.

What Satoshi did was to create a system that decentralises control of the databases.

Decentralising control of the databases is possibly the single biggest change to the foundation of our civilisation since the first databases were created in ancient Sumner.

Very different things though. The concept of a decentralized database isn’t without merit.

However, when was the last time a commercial bank maliciously defrauded it’s customers (going bankrupt, IT errors, etc not counting). I don’t see any reason to have more or less faith in HSBC than a public blockchain. They’ll game the system, defraud each other, which yes ultimately costs the little guy at the bottom. But HSBC isn’t going to up and disappear in the night.

However part 2, blockchain’s aren’t immune from the same issues that plague conventional money either. Stash it in a hard drive under your mattress, your house can still burn down or it can end up in a landfill in south wales. Put it in a ‘bank’ and, well we’ve seen several exchanges/stable-coins disappear into someone’s lifestyle in a convenient country with no extradition treaties.

If that knowledge helps me make a profit then I’m happy with that.

I know how gravity works, but that just means the ball always ends up at the bottom of the well in the roulette wheel and the dice hit the table. The person who lost that money to you thought exactly the same (and the banker/miner/exchange enjoyed facilitating your transaction).

Very different things though. The concept of a decentralized database isn’t without merit.

To me that’s what crypto is. Like I said though, in the early days of the internet the only thing it was used for was porn (with a few wierdos working on projects such as google and amazon). Time will tell what the crypto space becomes.

However, when was the last time a commercial bank maliciously defrauded it’s customers (going bankrupt, IT errors, etc not counting).

I would say the 2008 financial crisis.

You could argue that was reckless rather than malicious but the end result was the same. And many knew that their gambles were unsustainable but carried on anyway which imo is malicious. Normal people ended up paying the debts of the super rich.

However part 2, blockchain’s aren’t immune from the same issues that plague conventional money either. Stash it in a hard drive under your mattress, your house can still burn down or it can end up in a landfill in south wales.

How to secure your keys in such a way that you won’t lose them but others can’t get at them. It is a good question, that’s for sure.

I put that under the ‘change of thinking’ category rather than a fundamental flaw.

@thisisnotaspoon

And how exactly would you define mining / halving?

Nothing like a political decision to print a load of money at all. Not one bit.

That question shows that we can’t really have a meaningful discussion (and the rest of your post gets worse). It’s kind of normal in the crypto space, hardly anyone understands how it works. But then, it seems that most people don’t understand that wholesale printing of cash by governments leads to inflation, and more than that, they’re surprised when it happens.

I would say the 2008 financial crisis.

That wasn’t the bank stealing your money though was it (at least in a direct way). No one went into Northern Rock and manipulated the database to take a zero off the end of everyone’s savings account. And nothing about crypto addresses the problem that caused the financial crash. Flick back a few pages in this thread and some people were saying how great it was that “big players” were getting involved. If a Wall Street bank needs to plug a hole in its balance sheet to cover the next financial crisis, they’re potentially just as likely to dump a load of crypto as they are Northern Rock shares.

I put that under the ‘change of thinking’ category rather than a fundamental flaw.

But that’s my point, you could apply any of that change to conventional transactions.

Nothing like a political decision to print a load of money at all. Not one bit.

Printing money is printing money, whether it’s controlled by a government, a central bank, an algorithm, and an inverse proportionality with the cost of computing power and energy.

That question shows that we can’t really have a meaningful discussion (and the rest of your post gets worse). It’s kind of normal in the crypto space, hardly anyone understands how it works. But then, it seems that most people don’t understand that wholesale printing of cash by governments leads to inflation, and more than that, they’re surprised when it happens.

You should go argue that with Rone on the MMT thread.

we can’t really have a meaningful discussion. It’s kind of normal in the crypto space, hardly anyone understands how it works.

Sounds more like a deficiency in your ability to communicate than my knowledge.

No one went into Northern Rock and manipulated the database to take a zero off the end of everyone’s savings account

Well, not exactly. Synthetic CDOs, though? You are literally into scam territory there. Definitely Ponzi scheme at an absolute minimum.

I have no doubt there are hundreds of schemes like this being run by major banks and the reason they are happy to do this is because if the house of cards falls again they know the governments will bail them out and the taxpayer will foot the bill.

And nothing about crypto addresses the problem that caused the financial crash.

No, but it does stop the government taking money from you to bail out banks. If the people who were risking their money stood to lose that money they would behave very differently.

But that’s my point, you could apply any of that change to conventional transactions.

Not really. You can hold onto physical assets (such as cash, gold, mountain bikes, etc) or you can rely on a database controller to keep track of what you own.

There isn’t another option that allows you to register your assets on a database without a single entity being responsible for that database.

It becomes a hybrid between physical assets and a database. It requires a new way of thinking.

Losing your crypto keys is more like leaving a bag of gold in the pub than it is losing a bank card.

@thisisnotaspoon

when was the last time a commercial bank maliciously defrauded it’s customers

Working in commercial banking, I wouldn’t say it happens more than daily.

I mean, this sort of stuff is clearly trivial (quick google):
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/01/discredit-history-10-years-of-barclays-scandals

or even direct customer fraud.

and the banks, all banks, haven’t been regularly fined hundreds of millions (billions) for money laundering…

…oh, they’re all above board eh? No pattern of criminality throughout the industry. And wider – state-led criminality from central banks and down..

There’s clearly no need to fundamentally change the system of money. We’re not getting regularly defrauded from all angles. The interface between states, central banks, commercial banks, criminals is clean and fully transparent eh?

Our banking IS a criminal enterprise. Moving to a system where we’ve got a transparent ledger, that can’t be manipulated by governments, banks or criminals, that can be fully read by anyone who cares to read it, would be a massive step forward for mankind and a massive blow to criminals.

But the media narrative doesn’t say that does it. It links criminality to bitcoin, rather than criminality to our criminal banking system. Wherever there’s money, there’s going to be crime. I’d rather have a transparent ledger (you ask any bank to show you their ledger!) – and a non-manipulable, non-printable source of fund, with the value being set by what mankind decides, not FIAT, which basically means “what governments say it’s worth”.

Very different things though. The concept of a decentralized database isn’t without merit.

Its use is limited though since dbs rarely live in isolation. They interact with other things and have people making decisions about the validity. Generally you end up with one “person” making the final decision often in court.
To take one example people have talked about putting the land registry on a blockchain. Its pretty pointless since ultimately the government is still going to own that information and need to resolve disputes.

The “code is law” is another good example. As soon as someone finds a bug (which unsurprisingly for any software dev is not exactly uncommon) then generally the response has been to roll it back or go ask the law for help.

:rolleyes:

To take one example people have talked about putting the land registry on a blockchain. Its pretty pointless since ultimately the government is still going to own that information and need to resolve disputes.

The “code is law” is another good example.

For every example I could give, you could pick it apart and tell us why it wouldn’t work. It’s kind of like if I travelled back to 1995 and tried to explain Netflix and Ebay. It would be very easy for you to pick both apart and explain in detail why they were ridiculous.

Crypto isn’t the thing. It’s the thing that’s going to make the thing possible.

Wen lambo

Soon

It’s kind of like if I travelled back to 1995 and tried to explain Netflix and Ebay

Not the best examples really.
Netflix (I assume you mean in streaming mode not the original rental) would be easy enough to explain. You wouldnt get far selling it due to the network limitations but its something with an obvious value once those issues are overcome.
eBay: Not a great example since it had started in 1995 and quickly grew.

Crypto isn’t the thing. It’s the thing that’s going to make the thing possible.

Make what possible? Beyond dodgy drug marketplaces?
Blockchain does potentially have some specialist uses but where are the killer apps beyond dodgy investments?

@dissonance, you clearly don’t understand the possibilities (or the tech), but it’s not for other people to point them out, it’s for you to find out.

If you bother to look though – the context is in my post above. Our current criminal banking system – which is not just a “dodgy investment”, but an ungovernable full-blown asset-stripper by the rich, for the rich. Hence the invention of crypto, after over a century of boom-bust economics where gains are privatised and losses are socialised.

However, if you can’t see the fact that the existence of a transparent ledger alone (not to mention all of the other things) would be game-changing for us then I don’t think anyone can help.

but it’s not for other people to point them out, it’s for you to find out

May I ask why?

@greyspoke:

May I ask why?

Not sure if serious, ’cause it’s kind of obvious. But to humour you, a couple of reasons:
1) You’re responsible for your own education.
2) To learn, you have to put effort in – either learn by doing or researching. It’s too easy to discount what other people say, there’s no effort in it, and nothing sticks.

If people do point stuff out to you, that’s a favour. And good on ’em. But if you rely solely on that to improve your own knowledge then you’ll, erm, never really improve it. Or you’ll end up like an anti-vaxxing idiot. One or the other 🙂

Crypto isn’t the thing. It’s the thing that’s going to make the thing possible.

So we’re three steps from some cryptic possibility which can’t be described because when you know, you know… 😉

Crypto still feels like the pinnacle of MLMs: Wrapped up with it’s own jargon and an army of reactionary believers trying to gaslight anyone with doubts by telling them there’s a gap in their education…

So far as I’m concerned with crypto, all roads lead to another SBF…

So we’re three steps from some cryptic possibility which can’t be described because when you know, you know… 😉

Well, you’re asking me to do the equivalent of single-handedly invent the entirety of the internet. I can make a few predictions that will be easy to pick holes in because that’s the nature of predictions.

It could be related to generating tokens based on what we produce (as I said earlier, see BAT and Helium) and then being able to set value independently of middlemen.

Or smart contracts could have a major impact.

Or maybe NFTs could go beyond pictures of monkeys and a system will emerge that makes it impossible to ever knowingly buy a stolen bike.

Like I said, picking holes in each of these will be very easy but if you like shooting fish in a barrel knock yourself out. The internet didn’t turn into what it is today because one person had a bunch of ideas. It came about because millions of people had a load of mostly bad ideas and a handful of really good ones.

Well, you’re asking me to do the equivalent of single-handedly invent the entirety of the internet.

Am I?

Am I?

Well, you say, ‘It’s not good for anything, it’s just MLM, tulips etc…’

I say, ‘We can use it for this.’

You say, ‘That won’t work because…’

And the chances are you’d be absolutely right. There are more bad ideas out there than there are good ones and even good ones can fail if the timing isn’t exactly right.

Wrapped up with it’s own jargon

The thing about jargon is that you have to know enough about a subject to be able to identify what is actual jargon and what is just the name of a thing.

If I started talking about my bike to a non-bike person, they would have literally no idea if I was describing some techno-babble advertising nonsense or just naming parts of my bike. They don’t know enough to make the distinction.

The sunk cost fallacy goes both ways and Fear of Having Missed Out is also a thing. People now have a vested interest in crypto failing as they feel they have missed their chance to make a profit. If it fails they were right all along. If they are wrong then they missed out on a chance to make a killing.

Kind of like the meme-coin evangelists who know nothing about the tech but have invested heavily in a particular shit-coin. They are emotionally invested in a particular outcome.

You are also emotionally invested in a particular outcome.

Many on this thread are proud of their lack of understanding of crypto. Personally it’s not something I would be shouting about.

I don’t understand much of what is on this thread but I am trying (some say very trying) I have gained some knowledge this morning though

Losing your crypto keys is more like leaving a bag of gold in the pub than it is losing a bank card.

Like this one @bruceWee

Many on this thread are proud of their lack of understanding of crypto. Personally it’s not something I would be shouting about.

You seem to be confusing disagreement with the claimed benefits with lack of understanding.
I and plenty of other people looked at it with curiosity in the early days but there have been no obvious usages emerging especially once the get rich quick hucksters got involved.
Actually thats unfair. Its been great as a speed run of the history of finance and why things have ended up how they are.

Something I have noticed and its rather blatant with the examples you use is there seems to be very little thought put into how technology interacts with the wider world.
As a casual example you talk about middlemen. Its been fascinating to see how quickly they have emerged in cryptocurrencies.

Something I have noticed and its rather blatant with the examples you use is there seems to be very little thought put into how technology interacts with the wider world.

And yet I specifically mentioned BAT and Helium.

And I suggested how NFTs could be adapted to ensure no one unknowingly bought a stolen bike again (and theoretically any object that has a unique identifier and no database system exists to establish ownership).

Yes, there are issues with these existing projects and no doubt my idea has multiple issues and could be easily picked apart but to say I’ve never considered how crypto is going to interact with the wider world is just wrong.

@brucewee:

The thing about jargon is that you have to know enough about a subject to be able to identify what is actual jargon and what is just the name of a thing.

100%. This thread is basically a crypto version of Feynman’s magnets and why questions 🙂

I mean, this sort of stuff is clearly trivial (quick google):
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/01/discredit-history-10-years-of-barclays-scandals

or even direct customer fraud.

and the banks, all banks, haven’t been regularly fined hundreds of millions (billions) for money laundering…

…oh, they’re all above board eh? No pattern of criminality throughout the industry. And wider – state-led criminality from central banks and down..

There’s clearly no need to fundamentally change the system of money. We’re not getting regularly defrauded from all angles. The interface between states, central banks, commercial banks, criminals is clean and fully transparent eh?

And yet, is any of that solved by “crypto”.

Laundering – nope, adding layers of encrypted privacy to it in fact.
LIBOR rigging – nope, could rig the rate at which I loan you a bitcoin just as much as if it was bullion or Baht’s.
Opening fake accounts to make it look like the banks busy – nope, even easier if those accounts are just identified by hexadecimal strings rather than needing pesky thins like birth certificates, SS/NI numbers, proof of address and passports.

All you’re showing at best is that crypto exchanges / wallets / stable coins have only been found to be multiple times worse than their real word counterparts, rather than just bad in isolation.

However, if you can’t see the fact that the existence of a transparent ledger alone (not to mention all of the other things) would be game-changing for us then I don’t think anyone can help.

Except it’s not transparent is it? For someone who claims we all need to go and do our own research you seem to be missing what “crypto” is an abbreviation of.

you clearly don’t understand the possibilities (or the tech), but it’s not for other people to point them out, it’s for you to find out.

If you bother to look though

or even direct customer fraud.

and the banks, all banks, haven’t been regularly fined hundreds of millions (billions) for money laundering…

…oh, they’re all above board eh? No pattern of criminality throughout the industry. And wider – state-led criminality from central banks and down..

There’s clearly no need to fundamentally change the system of money. We’re not getting regularly defrauded from all angles. The interface between states, central banks, commercial banks, criminals is clean and fully transparent eh?

Ahem:

Except it’s not transparent is it?

Erm, yes. It is.

Unless you’re talking specifically about privacy coins you can check every transaction in every wallet, ever.

If people do point stuff out to you, that’s a favour. And good on ’em. But if you rely solely on that to improve your own knowledge then you’ll, erm, never really improve it. Or you’ll end up like an anti-vaxxing idiot. One or the other 🙂

Well all knowlege comes fom other people apart from that gathered from fundamental research. In this instance that would be examining the source code or other fundamental specifications and working from there I guess. That is not practical for most. So we rely on the commentariat, from whom one can obtain any view one wants. Against that background, anyone who appears to have a clear view of the matter is going to have to expect questions.