Bitcoin and altcoins, anyone here following or use them?

[redrumloa]

The sleeping giant that is Litecoin seems to be waking up. If you are into crypto at all, you may want to buy some Litecoin here. It is currently trading at $160. Litecoin has 4 times the max supply, so to have the same market cap it would be trading at $4,000. Parity with Bitcoin may not be realistic at this point, but half BTC's market cap should be. That's be $2,000 at current BTC price.

With Steam at least temporarily dropping Bitcoin due to high transaction fees, speculation is they will start to accept Litecoin which is faster, less volatile than Bitcoin, and transaction fees are in the pennies. If Steam starts to accept Litecoin, we will see $2,000 Litecoin nearly overnight.

-Edit-
Actually I am a little late. Part of the rally is due to the fact you can buy Steam refills with Litecoin already. I'll investigate tomorrow what refills mean. i suspect it's not directly in the Steam store?

 

[JoBBo]

Bitcoin is going to $1M minimum BTW, you can bank on it. Consider this following statistic below.

Source: I used to be a bitcoin bull—here’s why that changed

The bitcoin network is programmed to never produce more than 21 million bitcoins. (...) with bitcoins soaring above $17,000, the value of all bitcoins in circulation is now more than $280 billion (...) It also means the value of all bitcoins is about one-fifth the value of all gold held for private investment, which is around $1.5 trillion.

At $1M USD per bitcoin, the value of all bitcoins would be close to 12 times the value of all gold held for private investment (at today's prices) in the entire world. Seems far fetched, does it not?

 

[Robert]

Related:
Up to 'ONE BEEELLION' vid-stream gawpers toil in crypto-coin mines
Come for the free movies, stay to dig Monero for a stranger

 

[Robert]

op-ed:
I used to be a bitcoin bull—here’s why that changed
With "buy bitcoin with credit card" trending on Google, investors should be wary.

 

[redrumloa]

At $1M USD per bitcoin, the value of all bitcoins would be close to 12 times the value of all gold held for private investment (at today's prices) in the entire world. Seems far fetched, does it not?

No, not at all.

 

[ilwrath]

op-ed:
I used to be a bitcoin bull—here’s why that changed
With "buy bitcoin with credit card" trending on Google, investors should be wary.

My first thought was to cross post it to this thread when I saw the headline, too. Ars OpEds are usually well researched and thought out. After reading this one, though, my conclusion is that it is an exception to the general rule. While I don't disagree with the premise that people should be wary... The article really presents no coherent or documented arguments as to why.

"Buy bitcoin with credit card" sounds like a search your average idiot who just got their hard drive locked by Cryptolocker would type into a search bar. The dollar value per person metric proposed is completely bizarre. Especially in light of how unequally wealth is distributed. You might as well look at dollar value per grains of sand.

It also means the value of all bitcoins is about one-fifth the value of all gold held for private investment, which is around $1.5 trillion. That, too, seems about right.

That is the only interesting statement. And there is no evidence presented at all that bitcoin should be around 1/5th the value of gold. Why should it be? Gold is a weird thing. It had a very high intrinsic value in early times. Now, not so much, but it still has SOME intrinsic value. It's used for baubles, commemorative coins, overpriced electronic cable ends, it's pleasing feel, weight, and gleam cause it to be displayed as a luxury item, etc. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value at all. Just whatever random value happens to be agreed upon at that moment. The only value it has is if there is a stable way to convert it to something else. Which we don't have. The other thing that statement, and the entire article fails to go into is that we have no way of knowing how many bitcoins are actually remaining in circulation. We know an upper bound of how many can exist, but we have no way of knowing how many have been lost. When Bitcoin was at less than a dollar, there wasn't a lot of incentive to keep very good track of your wallet info. I know early on, I mined like 0.25 coin, which was lost. How many other people did stuff like that? That would greatly impact that general valuation, as well.

Of course, if a bank scoops up a bunch of bitcoins and then opens an actual stable exchange, and the government doesn't shut them down for it... That could be very lucrative for them, and anyone else holding bitcoin. As well as declaring open season to legitimizing the run on lots of blockchain based currencies.

 

[redrumloa]

op-ed:
I used to be a bitcoin bull—here’s why that changed
With "buy bitcoin with credit card" trending on Google, investors should be wary.

There will be an ugly pullback at some point. Could be from here, could be from higher. The pullback will likely be 60% or more. When that happens many people will pat themselves on the back claiming they were right all along and Bitcoin was nothing but a bubble. Then they will go quiet again when it makes fresh new all time highs. Too easy to predict, because history repeats itself and this has happened twice before already.

 

[redrumloa]

Bitcoin eyeing $20,000 today.

http://bitcointicker.co/coinbase/btc/usd/

 

[redrumloa]

Bitcoin Hits $20,000 Per Coin, Capping Year of Enormous Growth

 

[metalman]

 

[metalman]

 

[redrumloa]

Let's put that in perspective, shall we?

Here's an 8 month chart.

 

[metalman]

 

[metalman]

 

[metalman]

This Cryptocurrency Mining Rig Can Also Heat Your Home

Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index stood at 29.05TWh. That’s the equivalent of 0.13% of total global electricity consumption.

 

[metalman]

 

[redrumloa]

Fake News: Reuters Says South Korea ‘Prepares to Ban’ Bitcoin — Years from Now, if Lawmakers Write a Bill

The initial story, a write-through of only two paragraphs, did not mention the denials or the prolonged timeline. A global market roundup, published hours later, does not mention them either but still depicts the “ban” as impending.

Joseph Young, a Hong Kong-based freelance writer, declared the story “fake news” and “deception.” He also disputes the articles’ characterization of “raids” on exchanges.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/951300898571018241

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/951366424416567297

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/951366991637495808

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/951403653562167296

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/951428854085689344

Would fit in the Fake News thread *and* the Globalism thread. It's all connected.

 

[Robert]

Lloyds Banking Group has banned Bitcoin buys
Lloyds bank has stopped credit card customers from buying bitcoin, amid concerns of a credit risk surrounding the cryptocurrency's rapidly falling value.

Coming into effect today, the ban applies to Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA.

The currency has grown exponentially in the last year, peaking at $20,000 (£14,465) in December 2017. However, since then its value has rapidly decreased to about $8,000 (£5,700).

 

[redrumloa]

Lloyds Banking Group has banned Bitcoin buys
Lloyds bank has stopped credit card customers from buying bitcoin, amid concerns of a credit risk surrounding the cryptocurrency's rapidly falling value.

Coming into effect today, the ban applies to Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA.

The currency has grown exponentially in the last year, peaking at $20,000 (£14,465) in December 2017. However, since then its value has rapidly decreased to about $8,000 (£5,700).

Yup lots of FUD and globalist panic. Still I will put things into easy perspective.

One year ago today Bitcoin was trading at $1,020.

-Edit-
Two years ago today it was $376. Etc etc etc.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Lloyds Banking Group has banned Bitcoin buys
Lloyds bank has stopped credit card customers from buying bitcoin, amid concerns of a credit risk surrounding the cryptocurrency's rapidly falling value.

Coming into effect today, the ban applies to Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA.

The currency has grown exponentially in the last year, peaking at $20,000 (£14,465) in December 2017. However, since then its value has rapidly decreased to about $8,000 (£5,700).

Because banning people from buying a falling currency does what?
On the other hand, what other risky things can't you buy with a credit card? Presumably they are already banned at casinos and stock exchanges. Now if all loans for risky "investments" were banned - like mortgages in certain cities, for example...

Probably as a general rule we should make sure that "investors" only use money they actually have instead of using other people's money (what's called leverage). Can't see the really fat cats ever wanting to give that up though.