Semi OT: Anyone lose money in the crypto crash?

[shefcurry]

The transaction issue is tied to the miners, yes, but energy costs would have to be so punitive that if you can't run computational rigs then we have bigger problems on our hands as a civilization, like keeping the lights on in our own homes.

Transaction clearing times matter. You need a critical mass of miners to support a critical mass of transactions. A critical mass of miners is not cheap to capitalize or operate.

The advantage of a bank is that it offers financial products that support the costs of running its electronic infrastructure. Miners have no such advantage. Mint coins and sell them, or die.

And with halving, the price of BTC needs to double at each halving just to continue to break even. That sounds very dangerous if I'm a miner and the shine is off institutional capital coming into crypto. Who's going to buy enough BTC to double the price by a scheduled interval? Not mom and pop.

[deck]

[If the entire network is turned off (yes I know they're the same) the ledger doesn't disappear. It lives on. You could shut down the entire world's internet and bring civilization back into the dark ages, crawl out of the ashes, and then run a single node and the ledger would still be there. You can't kill bitcoin just like you can't kill gold. The ledger CAN be verified.

The transaction issue is tied to the miners, yes, but energy costs would have to be so punitive that if you can't run computational rigs then we have bigger problems on our hands as a civilization, like keeping the lights on in our own homes.

There is very little value in a historical ledger that can't be used for future transactions. By this logic, I can create an application that transposes the entire transaction history of BTC to a plain old database and have the same utility. BTC's utility is in it's ability to perform future transactions, not in it's ability to maintain a ledger of transactions that have occurred in the past.

Immutable ledgers are not new or specific to blockchain; they have existed for decades. What is unique about crypto currency is how that immutable ledger is appended. In your hypothetical example above of BTC being reduced to one node, you are correct that we could still verify the integrity and information of the ledger with that single node, but that single node would now be able to write whatever it wants to the ledger.

What shefcurry was getting at, is that at a certain price point of BTC, the cost to compute the next hash (primarily in terms of electrical consumption) can exceed the value awarded to the miner. If this happens, the currency will likely fail, or transaction costs on the network will go up substantially. We were getting precariously close to this in late 2022. Core Scientific (a relatively large BTC miner) filed for bankruptcy when prices were floating around $17k. It's likely that lots of miners are operating at a loss right now at around $20k, with them betting on the price of the BTC they are able to retain going back up. So no, this isn't a risk that is only realized in some end of world scenario where mankind is challenged with computational power, this is a potential risk right now.

The utility part you keep moaning on about will come when the lightning network becomes ubiquitous. Bitcoin will live side-by-side with fiat for the foreseeable future just like gold has.

Sure, but how useful is this in practice? We have been able to do peer-to-peer transactions for sometime now. What exactly is the revolutionary utility of BTC or the Lightning Network? What is BTC allowing us to do that I can't already do today? I for one will never make use of BTC or Lightning, as the idea of my transaction history being written to a public ledger that anyone can access is horrific. Lots of hay is made about the fact that with BTC we can transact across boarders quickly, or perform other peer-to-peer transactions quickly. What is lost in those statements is that the current global payments systems don't take time to transact due to some technical limitation, those existing networks are slow to transact due to AML, Fraud, and Sanctions checks, or more simply, due to regulation and the need to provide consumer protections.

[canz55]

The transaction issue is tied to the miners, yes, but energy costs would have to be so punitive that if you can't run computational rigs then we have bigger problems on our hands as a civilization, like keeping the lights on in our own homes.

Transaction clearing times matter. You need a critical mass of miners to support a critical mass of transactions. A critical mass of miners is not cheap to capitalize or operate.

The advantage of a bank is that it offers financial products that support the costs of running its electronic infrastructure. Miners have no such advantage. Mint coins and sell them, or die.

And with halving, the price of BTC needs to double at each halving just to continue to break even. That sounds very dangerous if I'm a miner and the shine is off institutional capital coming into crypto. Who's going to buy enough BTC to double the price by a scheduled interval? Not mom and pop.

If the transaction clearing time was a month, several months, or even a year, that is still preferable than taking for example x metric tonnes of gold and trucking it to a port where it would be loaded onto a ship that would set sail to x destination half-way around the world.

A critical mass of block miners is cheaper and more efficient to operate than renting digging equipment and then spending a lifetime looking for rare metal deposits around the world. Until the inverse is true, the mines will continue to be turned on.

EDIT

I know I'm applying wild examples but I would suggest that you don't waste a second of your time thinking or arguing about whether the mines will remain on or not. As sure as you and I will die one day, long after we're dead the network will remain active bar any unforeseen catastrophes to the grid (natural or otherwise) .

[canz55]

There is very little value in a historical ledger that can't be used for future transactions. By this logic, I can create an application that transposes the entire transaction history of BTC to a plain old database and have the same utility. BTC's utility is in it's ability to perform future transactions, not in it's ability to maintain a ledger of transactions that have occurred in the past.

Immutable ledgers are not new or specific to blockchain; they have existed for decades. What is unique about crypto currency is how that immutable ledger is appended. In your hypothetical example above of BTC being reduced to one node, you are correct that we could still verify the integrity and information of the ledger with that single node, but that single node would now be able to write whatever it wants to the ledger.

You're not wrong but let's get back to the gold analogy for a minute. (I'm going to dumb it down, not for you or shefcurry but for others who don't quite understand the granular details of how cryptology works.)

Pretend I have all the remaining gold that the world has produced and ever will produce in a locked room that is impenetrable and the key to the room is an encrypted cypher. Let's also imagine that it would take 168 years to penetrate the vault full of gold (which is exactly the same time it would take a single node to mine 2016 blocks.)

One outcome is that humanity doesn't bother with the project of waiting and forgets a time when gold had any value at all. Could this happen to Bitcoin? I absolutely concede that is a possibility. There might be a time in the future when Bitcoin goes to zero because it's so impractical to carry the cost of the network due to a breakdown in the grid or something else.

Another outcome is that people who are motivated by wealth will simply do everything they can (even risk their lives) to get the gold. By the way, there are several dead bodies throughout the tombs within the Egyptian pyramids of dead thieves who risked it all to get at the treasure. It's one of men's predictable traits.

What shefcurry was getting at, is that at a certain price point of BTC, the cost to compute the next hash (primarily in terms of electrical consumption) can exceed the value awarded to the miner. If this happens, the currency will likely fail, or transaction costs on the network will go up substantially. We were getting precariously close to this in late 2022. Core Scientific (a relatively large BTC miner) filed for bankruptcy when prices were floating around $17k. It's likely that lots of miners are operating at a loss right now at around $20k, with them betting on the price of the BTC they are able to retain going back up. So no, this isn't a risk that is only realized in some end of world scenario where mankind is challenged with computational power, this is a potential risk right now.

There have been bear markets in the past that nearly crushed most if not all hard assets. If you remember for example back in 1999 the US dollar was outperforming gold which lasted several years (gold was flat at barely 300 dollars an ounce) and it wasn't until 2004 that gold was back on par with the US monetary base. When something like that happens, you're running mining equipment and manpower at a net loss to the point where entire mines collapse. This is obviously part of the asset cycle but what you don't do is destroy the mining equipment, rather; you either re-purpose it for something or store it until it's time to mine again.

The point is that during these cycles you will inevitably have a downsizing of the overall infrastructure but that doesn't mean its going away forever, that would be stupid.

The utility part you keep moaning on about will come when the lightning network becomes ubiquitous. Bitcoin will live side-by-side with fiat for the foreseeable future just like gold has.

Sure, but how useful is this in practice? We have been able to do peer-to-peer transactions for sometime now. What exactly is the revolutionary utility of BTC or the Lightning Network? What is BTC allowing us to do that I can't already do today? I for one will never make use of BTC or Lightning, as the idea of my transaction history being written to a public ledger that anyone can access is horrific. Lots of hay is made about the fact that with BTC we can transact across boarders quickly, or perform other peer-to-peer transactions quickly. What is lost in those statements is that the current global payments systems don't take time to transact due to some technical limitation, those existing networks are slow to transact due to AML, Fraud, and Sanctions checks, or more simply, due to regulation and the need to provide consumer protections.

Personally I don't even care about the lightning network atm. I'm not hodling BTC for its utility just like I don't hold gold for its utility, I have it because of its scarcity. Regardless, we're still in the early days of crypto payment solutions etc.

[brownbobcat]

The gold standard? Oh, good lord.

[anotherhomer]

I doubt crypto has a crazy amount of upside

Maybe 5-7x of its current price, but not 30-100x

[deck]

Personally I don't even care about the lightning network atm. I'm not hodling BTC for its utility just like I don't hold gold for its utility, I have it because of its scarcity. Regardless, we're still in the early days of crypto payment solutions etc.

You should have just started with this Regarding and holding BTC as a speculative asset is not a terrible play. You will find lots of people don't have a problem with that position.

It's when people are claiming that BTC is somehow going to revolutionize the world that my eyes start to roll. The problems with the banking industry, with government fiscal policy, etc. are not problems of technology (which is all BTC is capable of solving) they problems of human behaviour, they are problems of established modalities, as it were.

And while the scarcity of BTC is also compelling, I am not hanging my hat on BTC being the penultimate crypto currency of the future; the technology is simply too flawed and too inefficient. In my mind, BTC is kind of akin to ARPANET if we are to draw on an internet analogy.

There have been bear markets in the past that nearly crushed most if not all hard assets. If you remember for example back in 1999 the US dollar was outperforming gold which lasted several years (gold was flat at barely 300 dollars an ounce) and it wasn't until 2004 that gold was back on par with the US monetary base. When something like that happens, you're running mining equipment and manpower at a net loss to the point where entire mines collapse. This is obviously part of the asset cycle but what you don't do is destroy the mining equipment, rather; you either re-purpose it for something or store it until it's time to mine again.

The point is that during these cycles you will inevitably have a downsizing of the overall infrastructure but that doesn't mean its going away forever, that would be stupid.

There is a critical difference though. If the BTC network were to collapse because the perceived value of BTC drops so much that it is no longer profitable to mine, and if the cost of miners directly charging transaction fees made the network unpractical for any real world use case, the value will never recover. You are incorrectly assuming that BTC will forever be transact-able, which is a massive assumption. The critical difference between mined gold and mined bitcoin is that the mined gold does have intrinsic value. Mined BTC only has value if it can still be used to transact (converted to fiat or exchanged for goods). Don't get me wrong, the world wide market cap of gold vastly exceeds its true intrinsic value, but mined gold sitting in a vault does have intrinsic value. Mined BTC that can no longer be transacted has zero value.

[canz55]

It's when people are claiming that BTC is somehow going to revolutionize the world that my eyes start to roll.

I'm not in that camp. Fiat is necessary for a variety of reasons and I personally don't want to abolish fiat (that would be akin to giving up my privilege afforded to me by merely living in the western hemisphere).

There is a critical difference though. If the BTC network were to collapse because the perceived value of BTC drops so much that it is no longer profitable to mine, and if the cost of miners directly charging transaction fees made the network unpractical for any real world use case, the value will never recover.

It will recover because we're living in QE infinity. You can argue that Bitcoin is a bad investment compared to a rare painting, real estate, vanguard securities etc and we can have that debate but we both know central banks will keep printing money, and debase it as a consequence. That's a fact.

You are incorrectly assuming that BTC will forever be transact-able, which is a massive assumption

. There are more than a million miners in the world right now. For the network to break down you would have to reduce it by more than 70 percent. For that to happen, governments worldwide would have to ban it AND/OR a breakdown of the grid - either outcome is science fiction.

By the way, TESLA is building a 100 percent solar-powered Bitcoin mining complex in Texas which already started construction in April of last year.

The critical difference between mined gold and mined bitcoin is that the mined gold does have intrinsic value. Mined BTC only has value if it can still be used to transact (converted to fiat or exchanged for goods). Don't get me wrong, the world wide market cap of gold vastly exceeds its true intrinsic value, but mined gold sitting in a vault does have intrinsic value. Mined BTC that can no longer be transacted has zero value.

It was only discovered that gold had intrinsic value until they were applied to circuit boards in the 1950s. Today, gold is still mostly used in jewelry.

The "intrinsic value", "scarcity," "permanence bla bla bla" didn't change or alter the value of gold since 1950, it went up because there are more dollars in circulation now than there were 70 years ago. 21 trillion more.

[ratul]

Quiet here now. Odd? Hope some of y'all are using the public ritual to make big time money?

BTC saw the 1st leg up...
17K to 21.5K since last post
15.5K-21.5K since OP called bottom

2nd leg should be a bit bigger and likely very soon in the coming days/weeks (30-36K area maybe?)

3rd leg after that one should be simply massive

Most retail is paralyzed, doubtful or tapped out of the game... Kinda expecting the first 2 legs up should be done fairly quick to get eyes back in setting-up a massive FOMO leg to sell into the herd of retail buyers.

But what do I know? Just playing in the devils playground the way I see it.

Best of luck to all here

Did this guy call the top?

[refshateRaps]

Quiet here now. Odd? Hope some of y'all are using the public ritual to make big time money?

BTC saw the 1st leg up...
17K to 21.5K since last post
15.5K-21.5K since OP called bottom

2nd leg should be a bit bigger and likely very soon in the coming days/weeks (30-36K area maybe?)

3rd leg after that one should be simply massive

Most retail is paralyzed, doubtful or tapped out of the game... Kinda expecting the first 2 legs up should be done fairly quick to get eyes back in setting-up a massive FOMO leg to sell into the herd of retail buyers.

But what do I know? Just playing in the devils playground the way I see it.

Best of luck to all here

Did this guy call the top?

Are you new to trading or have some other agenda?

This has been climbing at a rapid rate $15.6k - 21.7K (right now) in stock terms since the OPs post and on the verge of something bigger then you can clearly comprehend.

Many others including SHIB have pop out on volume since the post you copied and are heading north

If the issue is you are just new & cant handle the pullbacks in an uptrend, then I hope you figure it out fast.

[DrCoach]

I, down about 50% but its. Very small percentage of my portfolio. Bitcoin has crashed 90% before so if u arent comfortable with that type of volitility this isnt for you.

A friend of a friend cashed out of bitcoin and made 4 mil and retired.

I hope it 5-7 years it blows up and i can buy a condo someplace warm

[ratul]

Quiet here now. Odd? Hope some of y'all are using the public ritual to make big time money?

BTC saw the 1st leg up...
17K to 21.5K since last post
15.5K-21.5K since OP called bottom

2nd leg should be a bit bigger and likely very soon in the coming days/weeks (30-36K area maybe?)

3rd leg after that one should be simply massive

Most retail is paralyzed, doubtful or tapped out of the game... Kinda expecting the first 2 legs up should be done fairly quick to get eyes back in setting-up a massive FOMO leg to sell into the herd of retail buyers.

But what do I know? Just playing in the devils playground the way I see it.

Best of luck to all here

Did this guy call the top?

Are you new to trading or have some other agenda?

This has been climbing at a rapid rate $15.6k - 21.7K (right now) in stock terms since the OPs post and on the verge of something bigger then you can clearly comprehend.

Many others including SHIB have pop out on volume since the post you copied and are heading north

If the issue is you are just new & cant handle the pullbacks in an uptrend, then I hope you figure it out fast.

You may be right but you may have also called the top. Fwiw.

[refshateRaps]

Did this guy call the top?

Are you new to trading or have some other agenda?

This has been climbing at a rapid rate $15.6k - 21.7K (right now) in stock terms since the OPs post and on the verge of something bigger then you can clearly comprehend.

Many others including SHIB have pop out on volume since the post you copied and are heading north

If the issue is you are just new & cant handle the pullbacks in an uptrend, then I hope you figure it out fast.

You may be right but you may have also called the top. Fwiw.

'Top' is years away. Temporary 'Top'(s) was April & November 2021.

Firmly believe this is probably one of the most life changing moment opportunities some will ever see. Already started, but still just in the beginning stages both for a short term euphoric move and long term. I'll consider unloading a very good chunk on any euphoria above ATH and reload a few months later when it happens.

Interest rates are pausing. They put their catalyst in place to thro gas on the entire market, really not sure how anyone is talking 'top' right now? What do I know? Best of luck

[shefcurry]

Are you new to trading or have some other agenda?

This has been climbing at a rapid rate $15.6k - 21.7K (right now) in stock terms since the OPs post and on the verge of something bigger then you can clearly comprehend.

Many others including SHIB have pop out on volume since the post you copied and are heading north

If the issue is you are just new & cant handle the pullbacks in an uptrend, then I hope you figure it out fast.

You may be right but you may have also called the top. Fwiw.

'Top' is years away. Temporary 'Top'(s) was April & November 2021.

Who is buying? Not institutional.
Firmly believe this is probably one of the most life changing moment opportunities some will ever see. Already started, but still just in the beginning stages both for a short term euphoric move and long term. I'll consider unloading a very good chunk on any euphoria above ATH and reload a few months later when it happens.

Interest rates are pausing. They put their catalyst in place to thro gas on the entire market, really not sure how anyone is talking 'top' right now? What do I know? Best of luck

Who is buying? Not institutionals. Can’t see where the demand is coming from.

[refshateRaps]

You may be right but you may have also called the top. Fwiw.

'Top' is years away. Temporary 'Top'(s) was April & November 2021.

Who is buying? Not institutional.
Firmly believe this is probably one of the most life changing moment opportunities some will ever see. Already started, but still just in the beginning stages both for a short term euphoric move and long term. I'll consider unloading a very good chunk on any euphoria above ATH and reload a few months later when it happens.

Interest rates are pausing. They put their catalyst in place to thro gas on the entire market, really not sure how anyone is talking 'top' right now? What do I know? Best of luck

Who is buying? Not institutionals. Can’t see where the demand is coming from.

If I told you many inside players front loaded in early 2021 at MUCH MUCH higher prices for a massive turn thats coming you'd likely understandably call me crazy at this point. Especially newer infrastructure they want to introduce on a mass scale like AI, societal surveillance infrastructure, Crypto, Oil & 'climate change' related products like biofuels/EVs/solars, biotech (HUGE INSTITUTIONAL INVESTMENT), Cannabis , Tele-health and so on.

Anyhow, if you cant see the volume increase in many of these places over the last couple months signifying the bottom (in addition to the retail fear/paralysis/whining in this thread from people they brought to their knees since 2021, the masonic public news rituals into the rate hikes/inflation to paralyze the masses further at the bottom) then that seems crazy to me.

Its why they do what they do.

Retail has nothing to do with moving the market outside of being the grease for the Big guys squeaky wheels. They manufacture the fear and the FOMO on different timeframes and scales. Just on this aspect alone the case was easy to make that they have LONG exhausted retail and a direction change was imminent and should be on watch.

The same way most cant see the markets failing when they are at the top is the same reason they cant see the markets turning at the bottom. Now of days they have so many more channels and low level and high level masonic influencing puppets to deceive the masses, It works very well. Not just just in market purposes, but reading this thread it worked very well for that. Some people have seen enough to be immune to this type of BS.

What do I know? But my bets are on this thread going down in history as the most epic bottom call in something far greater then most can imagine both short term (as most should already see) and long term with some sizable shakes in between (couple years?) Always follow your own reads as its the only way to grow win or lose.

[refshateRaps]

Quiet here now. Odd? Hope some of y'all are using the public ritual to make big time money?

BTC saw the 1st leg up...
17K to 21.5K since last post
15.5K-21.5K since OP called bottom

2nd leg should be a bit bigger and likely very soon in the coming days/weeks (30-36K area maybe?)

3rd leg after that one should be simply massive

Most retail is paralyzed, doubtful or tapped out of the game... Kinda expecting the first 2 legs up should be done fairly quick to get eyes back in setting-up a massive FOMO leg to sell into the herd of retail buyers.

But what do I know? Just playing in the devils playground the way I see it.

Best of luck to all here

Did this guy call the top?

Umm, No. But this guy now knows who to follow when he need a clear signal to go harder on pull-backs. Don't get quiet on me after the 2nd leg.

Follow you own read always, only way to learn... Cause what do I know?

[alpha]

For all you get rich wannabes- no less than Charlie Munger, (Look him up) a longtime cryptocurrency skeptic, said digital currencies are a malicious combination of fraud and delusion. “This is a very, very bad thing.Nov 15, 2022

[ratul]

Quiet here now. Odd? Hope some of y'all are using the public ritual to make big time money?

BTC saw the 1st leg up...
17K to 21.5K since last post
15.5K-21.5K since OP called bottom

2nd leg should be a bit bigger and likely very soon in the coming days/weeks (30-36K area maybe?)

3rd leg after that one should be simply massive

Most retail is paralyzed, doubtful or tapped out of the game... Kinda expecting the first 2 legs up should be done fairly quick to get eyes back in setting-up a massive FOMO leg to sell into the herd of retail buyers.

But what do I know? Just playing in the devils playground the way I see it.

Best of luck to all here

Did this guy call the top?

Umm, No. But this guy now knows who to follow when he need a clear signal to go harder on pull-backs. Don't get quiet on me after the 2nd leg.

Follow you own read always, only way to learn... Cause what do I know?

lol, we will see in six months who is prescient

[VanWest82]

Crypto is a risk asset on par with or even riskier than your riskiest growth/tech stock. Growth stocks hate high interest rates. When high interest rates persist, it has a massive impact on the economy and investors typically pull their riskiest assets first. That goes for institutional investors too.

Currently, we have inverted yield curves with greater spreads than in 2000 and 2007. Recession is coming. If you think crypto - the riskiest asset class we have - will be immune to that then I don't know what else to tell you. Please be careful.

[anotherhomer]

Crypto is a risk on par with or even riskier than your riskiest growth/tech stock. Growth stocks hate high interest rates. When high interest rates persist, it has a massive impact on the economy and investors typically pull their riskiest assets first. That goes for institutional investors too.

Currently, we have inverted yield curves with greater spreads than in 2000 and 2007. Recession is coming. If you think crypto - the riskiest asset class we have - will be immune to that then I don't know what else to tell you. Please be careful.

I brought close to the bottom and even then, I saw a 30-35% downswing ....
There's still those type of 20-40% s
Downswings in either direction , so please be careful.

I have buffer but I'm just one bad bankruptcy, event from losing a lot