Bitcoin Tumbles Again, Loses a Quarter of Its Value during Thanksgiving Week

Archaea said:
Then as stated in Post 71 - people steer clear of using exchanges and manage their own keys. Unless you just take away the internet and VPN ability - how can you control it? And can any modern first world country take their efforts to that level?
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You really think so little of government powers. In order for crypto to do what you propose, then we are well past billions of people wandering around with their private key.
 
Aireoth said:
You really think so little of government powers. In order for crypto to do what you propose, then we are well past billions of people wandering around with their private key.
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A digital wallet like a Trezor, or Ledger Nano S makes managing your private key no more difficult than any USB password manager tool. Significantly easier than remembering, or writing down on paper a nasty long private key of 256 seemingly random chars.

But your point on complexity stands. Bitcoin is likely too complicated for the average American, and I agree that Crypto won't likely succeed in mass, until the successors find a way to better mask some of the inherit complication. It'll need to be accessible to the masses.
 
Bowman15 said:
LOL...sounds like it doesn't exist at all. I wonder how that bitycoin will work out for you in the apocalypse with no electricity.
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Probably better then those credit cards in your pocket, Debit cards and any bank not to exclude virtually all stores and places where you can buy things. There can be literally hundreds of separate Bitcoin nodes, networks that are not connected and once they are all connected back up the Blockchain will correct itself, all transactions would be authenticated and placed in the ledger and it will still be Bitcoin and not a bunch of different versions of Bitcoins.
 
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Archaea said:
Bowman15,

Marking me as a Cryptoevangelist, is silly. I've never tried to get anyone to buy it. I joined the party only last year after my own personal research. I think it has some merits, but more importantly there is a VAST amount of misinformation out there on it -- as evidenced in this very thread.
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I'd hazard to say most people in this thread know exactly what it is and treat it as such.

Archaea said:
Bowman15,

Marking me as a Cryptoevangelist, is silly. I've never tried to get anyone to buy it. In fact, when anyone asks me if they should buy some, because they've heard through the grapevine I am involved in mining it, I tell them they should do their own research and always tell them of all the potential risks and current volatility. My path has been a very cautious one. Most people are ignorant of everything crypto, and either dismiss it without knowledge, or jump in head first trying to make a quick buck. I joined the party only last year after my own personal Research. I think it has long term merits, but more importantly there is a VAST amount of misinformation out there on it - repeated day in and day out - by people who haven't even done a modicum of research -- as evidenced in this very thread.
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I call it like I see it. And this is a tech site so posters pretty much know the workings of cryptocurrencies. It's not so much the tech as in it's devout defenders treating it like a magical cure and pretending all the negative thisngs don't exist. Hint; you are trying to hard to defend it by saying you are not defending it.
 
noko said:
Probably better then those credit cards in your pocket, Debit cards and any bank not to exclude virtually all stores and places where you can buy things. There can be literally hundreds of separate Bitcoin nodes, networks that are not connected and once they are all connected back up the Blockchain will correct itself, all transactions would be authenticated and placed in the ledger and it will still be Bitcoin and not a bunch of different versions of Bitcoins.
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You mean my cash back credit card I pay zero interest on, no fees for transactions on my end that is covered 100% by fraud and being stolen...um yeah no.
 
gamerk2 said:
A few reasons. The simplest (and lead scientific one) is the US averages one recession per decade, so we're about due. Aside from that, the main drivers include inflation rising faster then incomes (which itself is a major warning siren as this infers something is majorly out of whack), a return to subprime lending (see those new 84-month auto loans they're handing out to hide the increased cost of vehicles?), and a general lack of growth across several major industries. I'm fully expecting a recession within the next 18-24 month period; I just see too many little things for me to believe one isn't on it's way.
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Not to derail the thread, but I certainly agree with your assessment. Any suggestions for how to prepare for it economically?
 
Dayaks said:
Generally it’s someone that hacks an exchange that was setup poor or an inside job. It’s like giving cash to an unregulated stock market and their vault gets robbed.

AFAIK coinbase and US based exchanges have to be insured.
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See but if a bank or stock broker gets robbed, I have federally regulated insurance to cover me.
 
noko said:
Probably better then those credit cards in your pocket, Debit cards and any bank not to exclude virtually all stores and places where you can buy things. There can be literally hundreds of separate Bitcoin nodes, networks that are not connected and once they are all connected back up the Blockchain will correct itself, all transactions would be authenticated and placed in the ledger and it will still be Bitcoin and not a bunch of different versions of Bitcoins.
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Um, no, that's not how bitcoin works. If you have hundreds of subnets not talking to each other, then you will have hundreds of *different* things claiming to be THE blockchain potentially (and likely) with multiple repeat fraudulent transactions. Bitcoin relies on global consensus of the blockchain with that consensus being what makes it a single bitcoin universe. Remove that global concensus (required to conduct transaction in non-connected fragmented networks), then you have in effect forked bitcoin into hundreds of sub-coins.
 
Dayaks said:
Coinbase has FDIC up to 250k just like a bank. It’s a US exchange.
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The tinfoil hat side of me thinks coinbase has come under fairly direct control of the IRS and US Government. Talk about a way for the US government to remove the anonymity of crypto? Engage an exchange, require photo ID uploads and all kind of PII data to use it. Offer FDIC insurance for their cooperation... 1.5 years ago it was said to be nearly impossible to FDIC insure a crypto Bank or exchange dealing in crypto. Suddenly coinbase says they are reporting over $20,000 dollar equivalent transactions to the IRS and now look, they became FDIC insured...

NiceHash was the biggest mining exchange pool in the world. It was managed out of Scandinavia and built on anonymity. Therfore it became a way to potentially launder crypto in addition to the normal business functions. You buy hashing power with crypto and then you receive freshly addressed crypto as payment with 0 tie to the crypto you used to purchase the hashing power. Oftentimes these purchasers bought hashing power at a slight loss. Meaning nicehash was paying the miners more for the hashing power than the hashing power was worth. Do the math...that doesn’t make sense outside of money laundering, not on the scale it was being performed.

Then Nicehash got hacked. Probably by the US Government — or let’s pretend it is so for the sake of argument.

Coinbase under the thumb of the US government reaches out to nicehash to establish a partnership. Nicehash, You partner with us? We’ll pay back your stolen coin so you can pay back your hash buyers and sellers and keep your business from imploding. We’ll get lots of information from coinbase transactions we monitor and you get to survive what should have collapsed your business model like any other exchange or service that gets hacked.

so now nicehash partners with coinbase. You can save 5% to have your nicehash hashing payments go directly to coinbase, rather than paid to your private anonymous personal wallet. Why? Why does that exist? Nevertheless, greedy or unthinking miners trade their anonymity for 5% more profit. The government gets access to coinbases customer and transaction records as part of their FDIC insurance and a big percentage of nicehash users as well. Suddenly crypto loses a big chunk of anonymity. Things can slowly be pieced together, inroads are being made to track who makes what transactions to whom from the only insured exchange in the World.

Too much tin foil hat?
 
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Archaea said:
The tinfoil hat side of me thinks coinbase has come under fairly direct control of the IRS and US Government. Talk about a way for the US government to remove the anonymity of crypto? Engage an exchange, require photo ID uploads and all kind of PII data to use it. Offer FDIC insurance for their cooperation... 1.5 years ago it was said to be nearly impossible to FDIC insure a crypto Bank or exchange dealing in crypto. Suddenly coinbase says they are reporting over $20,000 dollar equivalent transactions to the IRS and now look, they became FDIC insured...

NiceHash was the biggest mining exchange pool in the world. It was managed out of Scandinavia and built on anonymity. Therfore it became a way to potentially launder crypto in addition to the normal business functions. You buy hashing power with crypto and then you receive freshly addressed crypto as payment with 0 tie to the crypto you used to purchase the hashing power. Oftentimes these purchasers bought hashing power at a slight loss. Meaning nicehash was paying the miners more for the hashing power than the hashing power was worth. Do the math...that doesn’t make sense outside of money laundering, not on the scale it was being performed.

Then Nicehash got hacked. Probably by the US Government — or let’s pretend it is so for the sake of argument.

Coinbase under the thumb of the US government reaches out to nicehash to establish a partnership. Nicehash, You partner with us? We’ll pay back your stolen coin so you can pay back you hash buyers and sellers and keep your business from imploding. We’ll get lots of information from coinbase transactions we monitor and you get to survive what should have collapsed your business model like any other exchange or service that gets hacked.

so now nicehash partners with coinbase. You can save 5% to have your hashing payments go directly to nicehash, rather than paid to your private anonymous personal wallet. Why? Why does that exist? Nevertheless, greedy or unthinking miners trade their anonymity for 5% more profit. The government gets access to coinbases customer and transaction records as part of their FDIC insurance. Suddenly crypto loses a big chunk of anonymity. Things can slowly be pieced together, inroads are being made to track who makes what transactions to whom from the only insured exchange in the World.


Too much tin foil hat?
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That sounds about right. I am reporting my income as taxable so it doesn’t bother me.

Personally I was never into the whole “this is the new currency nonsense.” I mainly dabbled for funsies and free heat for my house.
 
Dayaks said:
Coinbase has FDIC up to 250k just like a bank. It’s a US exchange.
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Amazing! So the Bitcoin purists who used to extol the virtues of decentralization and keeping the government out of their network have finally capitulated. Are there any more of Bitcoin's value propositions that we can eliminate while we're still in this thread?
 
HockeyJon said:
Amazing! So the Bitcoin purists who used to extol the virtues of decentralization and keeping the government out of their network have finally capitulated. Are there any more of Bitcoin's value propositions that we can eliminate while we're still in this thread?
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They also believe in forking
 
Cryptos as a currency are a laughable discussion until the speculation craze ends or someone finds the correct balance between computational effort & its growth and preventing speculative bubbles.
 
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