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Cryptocurrency: A Discussion on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Related Projects * 5
    #24304820 - 05/08/17 02:04 PM (6 years, 8 months ago)
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Cryptocurrency: Digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and to verify the transfer of funds, with the unique attribute of decentralized operation, thus independent of central bank interference.  Most of us have heard of Bitcoin, the first player on the scene to use blockchain technology (a digital ledger in which transactions are recorded chronologically and publicly), and have witnessed its meteoric rise in value as it proved itself a viable medium of exchange, attracting the attention of venture capitalists and regulatory authorities.  Launched in 2009 with with practically no value, each Bitcoin (BTC) is today worth around US$1660 and the entire market capitalization of bitcoin is north of $27 billion.


       


Many follow-on cryptocurrencies have been created, but it wasn't until Ethereum debuted in the summer of 2015 that a major step in the evolution of cryptocurrency took place with the integration of smart contracts onto the blockchain.  Smart contracts introduced in the Ethereum network are autonomous decentralized applications (scripts) that can be stored on the blockchain and used to facilitate, verify and enforce the negotiation or performance of economically-laden procedural instructions.  Since the contracts become publicly available on the blockchain, they are thus capable of circumventing censorship, collusion and counterparty risk.  The instructions embedded in Ethereum contracts are paid for in Ether (ETH), which is the effective cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network.

Corporate giants such as Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, BNY Mellon, CME Group, Credit Suisse, ING, Intel, UBS, and BP (amongst several others) have setup the non-profit Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, investing millions to create a standard version of the Ethereum software that businesses around the world can use to track data and financial contracts.  This has lent further credibility to the evolution of the technology and caused the price of Ether to soar, with a market capitalization of over $8 billion.


         


Enter Tezos, the next intended evolutionary step in blockchain technology.  While Ethereum took a significant step forward by incorporating customizable smart contract functionality into its blockchain, there is still the fundamental challenge of governance, maintenance and security, as evidenced by the heated debate over how best to scale the bitcoin network as it grows, as well as the DAO hack that exploited the Ethereum network to the tune of around $50 million.  The creators of Tezos argue that these challenges manifested themselves in situations that put too much power in the hands of core development teams or miners; in other words, first-generation blockchains have become subject to a form of centralization that their developers sought to avoid.  Thus, during its three years of development, the Tezos team sought to address the need for decentralized innovation in protocol design and emphasized the importance of formal verification in its software design.  The fundamental change to governance is as follows:

Quote:

While all blockchains offer financial incentives for maintaining consensus on their ledgers, no blockchain has a robust on-chain mechanism to seamlessly amend the rules governing its protocol and explicitly fund protocol development. As a result, first generation blockchains tend to empower, de facto, centralized core development teams or miners to formulate design choices.

Tezos takes a fundamentally different approach by creating governance rules for stakeholders to approve of protocol upgrades that are then automatically deployed on the network. When a developer proposes a protocol upgrade, they can attach an invoice to be paid out to their address upon approval and inclusion of their upgrade. This approach provides a strong incentive to contribute efforts towards core development of the Tezos blockchain and further decentralizes the maintenance of the network. It compensates developers with tokens that have immediate value rather than forcing them to seek corporate sponsorships, foundation salaries, or work for Internet fame alone.

Tezos instantiates new technical innovations but also enforces types of constitutionalism through the use of formal proofs to mathematically verify that key properties are upheld over time. By allowing stakeholders to coordinate on-chain, the network also allows for the creation of bounties to implement specific features or discover bugs. Collectively, the network maintains the decentralized aspect of blockchains while introducing a mechanism to enable collective decision making. Tezos tokens not only power smart contracts in the network, but also allow votes on protocol amendments. The initial Tezos rollout is simple by design, but its self-amending nature means that the rules governing the network can be improved over time.




To the point, while Tezos is as yet unproven, a considerable amount of thought and planning has been put into its development and it appears to offer the next step in the evolution of blockchain technology and its associated cryptocurrency.  As I know many of us have participated in the use of or investment in various cryptocurrencies, I wanted to inform the crew here that there will be a crowd sale "initial coin offering" for Tezos beginning May 22nd, 2017.  You can participate in the allocation of the genesis coins through contributions in BTC or ETH.  There is no cap on the amount of contributions that will be accepted, in efforts to ensure that participation is not limited only to insiders, however there will be a small bonus given to the earliest adopters.



[Edit: Thread title changed to a broader headline]


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Edited by geokills (08/30/17 07:09 PM)


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Big Worm] * 1
    #24305099 - 05/08/17 04:03 PM (6 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Big Worm said:
Do you have any thoughts on Namecoin?

I always found the idea behind it interesting, but it's price hasn't risen much over the past few years leaving me to question if it's practical in use or even worth it as an investment.




I haven't hardly heard of Namecoin, which in and of itself makes me question its longevity or potential for mass market appeal and capital appreciation.  Upon cursory review, it looks like one of the earlier adaptations of Bitcoin's original blockchain technology, with a slight tweak allowing for additional data to be inserted into the blockchain.  Frankly, it seems like a specialized limited version of what the Ethereum adaptation sought to provide, by allowing some additional information to be stored in its blockchain.  However since Ethereum's technology is considerably more flexible (and Tezos will be as well), I doubt Namecoin has a bright future outside of highly specialized applications such as the DNS registry for .bit domains which it currently oversees.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Big Worm] * 1
    #24305186 - 05/08/17 04:37 PM (6 years, 8 months ago)
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Quote:

Big Worm said:
... honestly it's still hard for me to completely comprehend how the blockchain and all of it really works.




The blockchain is, in its most basic sense, a public ledger that contains every single transaction in chronological order, verified by a decentralized network of peer-to-peer participants.  For a detailed review of how the blockchain functions, check out the historic document attached to this post.  It was written by bitcoin's unidentified creator who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

This guy is thought to own roughly 1 million BTC... today's equivalent of nearly $1.7 billion! :whoa:


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: sh4d0ws] * 2
    #24340692 - 05/22/17 02:26 PM (6 years, 8 months ago)

 

Impressive continuation in the cryptocurrency trade, with Bitcoin and Ether hitting all time highs.  Moves last month by the Japanese government allowing retailers to legally accept bitcoin has boosted trading volume between BTC and the Japanese Yen, which now accounts for 40%+ of total trading volume in the cryptocurrency.  The Russian government, initially opposed to Bitcoin, is now looking at ways of regulating it for accepted legal transactions as soon as next year.  Continued media coverage, political turmoil and a push to offer cryptocurrencies in SEC sanctioned Exchange Traded Funds is also contributing to demand for these issues.

The Tezos crowdfunding campaign, origially slated to begin today, has been delayed due to regulatory delays in Switzerland, which is where the Tezos Foundation is set to operate:
Quote:

Tezos Fundraiser Delayed Until June

Dear potential Tezos contributors,

The Tezos Foundation has decided to delay the fundraiser previously scheduled for Monday, May 22, until some time in June. We want to share some background on what led to this decision:

For more than six months, Tezos' creators worked with legal experts to form a legal architecture for the Tezos Foundation and the global Tezos community that will stand the test of time. That architecture is now in place via the Tezos Foundation.

The Swiss authority that regulates and supervises all Swiss foundations is currently overwhelmed by demand. A key driver for that demand is that more cryptographic startups and ICOs are being launched here, in the Crypto Valley, than anywhere else in the world. This appeal stems from Switzerland's unique culture and politico-legal system which provides greater protection for individuals and their property than any other jurisdiction.

While the Foundation's legal advisors have stated that we could hold the fundraiser as planned, we have discussed this amongst our board and decided that, in the interest of the high prudential standards we hold ourselves to, we will not proceed until every i has been dotted and t has been crossed with the Swiss foundation supervisory authority. We will bring this level of care and forethought to everything it does, so the Tezos community always has peace of mind that things are being done right.

The Tezos Foundation is extremely pleased with the fantastic community that is starting to sprout around the Tezos project. The interest in the Tezos fundraiser has been electrifying. It is an amazing vote of confidence in decentralized governance and in the world class team developing the project. That interest has been matched by engineering development resulting in a testnet that has been operating for several months already and a production version that is expected to ship later this year.

Johann, Guido, Diego, and the Tezos Foundation team.





On an interesting ancillary and personally exciting note, the rapid rise in bitcoin may allow those who were burned by the Mt. Gox (original BTC exchange) bankruptcy in 2014, to recoup their loss and possibly even come out ahead.  The practical realist in me has kept my mouth shut on this for the most part, but having lost a five-figure sum in the fallout, it is something that I've kept an eye on and held in the back of my mind over the years.  By current estimates, if the value of bitcoin can get up to ~$2900, the bankrupt Mt. Gox estate can liquidate its assets to pay all accepted creditor claims.  Creditor claim value was determined by a ~US$450 bitcoin exchange rate and then converted to Japanese Yen.  As my account was almost entirely BTC, the current value of the BTC that was accepted as my claim is worth north of $80K, but alas, my frozen-in-time converted Yen claim value is worth around $17K.  I'm sure any payout will end up closer to the later figure.

Nevertheless, with bitcoin pushing $2200 right now, what once seemed like lost money may very well turn into found fortune.  I have remained skeptical, as there are ongoing lawsuits and fees associated with the bankruptcy proceedings that can quickly eat into creditor payouts, but the fact that hedge funds are now offering to buy out creditors claims in hopes for a windfall payout gives me hope.  For anyone else who holds a confirmed claim against Mt. Gox, if you're interested in receiving an offer from a hedge fund for a quick payout (word is that it will be around 15% of your account value), you can seek such offers via http://www.mygoxclaim.com.  I emailed for an offer today and will report back, but frankly, unless the offer is exceedingly attractive, I will opt to wait for the final payout even if it will take years longer to procure (and run the risk of never manifesting at all).


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: tito123] * 2
    #24382334 - 06/06/17 12:34 PM (6 years, 7 months ago)

I am not a big fan of the privacy differentiation factor that monero offers, mostly because it is not that difficult for those who wish to use bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) privately, to do so.  It takes some extra effort with respect to how your coins are procured, how you store them and how you spend them, but for the ultra paranoid, one can definitely use bitcoins in a manner that is practically and personally untraceable.  This would be done through the use of LocalBitcoins.com for purchasing coin, tumbling your coins through various wallets (or using a tumbling service through TOR) and making sure any receipts and purchases you make are from one-time-use-only wallets.

Nice to note that bitcoin and ether are pushing through all time highs today.  My portfolio of cryptocurrency has more than doubled since I started this post. :whoa:

That's pretty remarkable.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: tito123] * 1
    #24387445 - 06/08/17 08:19 AM (6 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

tito123 said:
After buying my first btc years ago at $6, I regret not investing a couple hundred and letting it sit for years.




Hah, yeah I became aware of BTC when it was trading around $6 as well... didn't buy any.  Started buying when it was around $300.

sh4d0ws, I also have a small amount of Ether classic, so small that I don't even pay attention to it, it's just sitting in my Kraken account.  Insofar as your question regarding selling now or holding, that really depends on what you're trying to do.  From a trading perspective, I don't think it's a bad idea to take some profits here and place some bids between $2,000 - $2,500.  But I do my trading in more liquid markets (i.e. stocks and options), so for me the cryptos are simply an asset allocation / diversification strategy similar to my gold, silver and palladium holdings, and thus, I'm not concerned about the volatility and am happy to sit on them.

One note about the Tezos launch, they will not accept fiat currency contributions for their ICO, so if you are planning to participate, you'll need to allocate some of your BTC to do so.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: howsyournaggerdoin] * 1
    #24429051 - 06/23/17 12:03 PM (6 years, 7 months ago)

Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag so to speak, and well capitalized venture capitalists are starting to get on board with these ICO's, which dilutes the available share for smaller retail investors like you and I.  Case in point, the Bancor ICO garnered $150 million earlier this month, earlier this week Status.im raised over $100 million in less than 3 hours, and just look at this list of ICO's set to hit the market.

To be sure, there will absolutely be complete failures amongst this rapid propulsion of new ICO's on the market (remember what happened to DAO?).  People see the money up for grabs, and there is a gold rush.  Tezos has a considerable amount of thought and planning put into its development, but no one really knows whether it will be adopted over the long term.  No one knows how much money will be raised through its ICO, and thus what size slice of the pie you will be allotted once it closes.

Put plainly, there is risk involved.  In fact, I would state that there is extreme risk involved in this newfound asset class.  Fortunately with extreme risk, comes the potential for extreme reward.  As such, one must be mindful not to get in over one's head, but also do what one can so as not to be left behind.

Tread cautiously, understand your own measure of what constitutes an acceptable loss, and take a stab at involving yourself an exciting new technology.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: memes] * 1
    #24434167 - 06/25/17 11:28 AM (6 years, 7 months ago)

Coinbase is a bit cumbersome.  They are well funded and apparently carry insurance, so are perhaps one of the more secure exchanges to use, but their platform leaves a lot to be desired.  If you want a more robust trading platform, consider opening an account at Kraken.com.  You will still have to provide personally identifying information to achieve reasonable account limits, but the platform allows you to place more complex orders, including lowball good-til-cancelled orders to pick up some scratch if the price falls to your desired purchase level... whereas on Coinbase you seem to be locked into whatever the market rate is at the time you place your order.  I use both, but also maintain private wallets (not held on a third party exchange), backed up on encrypted flash drives.

If you want some bitcoin quick, download a Bitcoin wallet, most proven options are listed here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Then head over to https://www.localbitcoins.org and buy directly from another peer.  You end up paying a premium this way, but the limits are much more flexible and depending on whom you buy from, you remain considerably more anonymous since you are basically walking into a bank and depositing cash into an account instead of linking your own bank account.  I'll admit it sounds a bit risky, but I've done it a few times with no problems, just make sure you trade with a well reviewed vendor.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: geokills] * 2
    #24439361 - 06/27/17 01:06 PM (6 years, 6 months ago)

Interesting note that Ether (ETH) has completed a full 50% retracement from its June 12th highs at ~$412 to a low of ~$204 this morning.  A significant lack of confidence hit the market for ETH after the GDAX exchange (operated by Coinbase) experienced a flash crash, triggering a litany of margin calls and stop loss orders that by some accounts cratered all the way down to $0.10/ETH about a week ago.  Coinbase ended up refunding some of the automated orders, but has subsequently experienced recurring issues/delays with buy/sell orders for Ether.

For anyone interested in beginning to build a position, I believe that this retracement presents an opportunity to do so at a reasonable price level.  From a strictly technical perspective, I could see another leg down to around ~$160, but I would be surprised if it dips that low unless there are continued issues buying/selling the cryptocurrency that indicate fundamental problems with the way the instrument is structured extending beyond the GDAX exchange itself.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: ManianFH] * 1
    #24461515 - 07/06/17 09:36 AM (6 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

mick said:
I just purchased .2 BTC to put towards Tezos. Not a lot but its at the limits of what we can afford. So it says its like a fundraiser, but I guess the coins will show up eventually?

I dont know how that works and am hoping im not just donating money to them, that would suck. Can anyone who knows their platform explain that?

Thanks, and thank you Geo for the heads up on it.




Don't thank me yet, mick!  You are essentially donating your money to the Tezos team, in hopes that their product will gain widespread adoption over time.  It is entirely possible that you will lose the value of your entire contribution, even as I am sure your Tezos wallet will ultimately become populated with the new coins - or "teezies" as they are called - after the close of the fundraiser.

This ICO has garnered way more attention that I thought it would, and due to the nature of its uncapped fundraising efforts, it will start off with a huge valuation (already having raised the highest amount of any ICO to date at around $200 million with days left to go).  This is good for the developers who are guaranteed a % stake in the fiat proceeds as well as the genesis issuance of coins, but it also means that the Tezos platform will be under a lot of pressure to prove the usefulness of the technology and find businesses who will adopt and make use of it quickly, or else they risk all of these early speculators attempting to ditch their investment in the ICO.  Because of the ICO's popularity, there are likely a lot of speculators looking to flip the coins on the open market once the fundraiser has closed and they receive their allotment of the genesis coins.  Unfortunately, because the ICO is running for so long and has no cap, it is essentially allowing everyone who wants to participate, a piece of the pie, so speculators with the intention for a quick flip will likely be disappointed as all of the demand will have been soaked up by the ICO and we could face a pretty serious oversupply issue, at least at the outset.

I did participate, but only contributed a single bitcoin while receiving the 20% early adopter bonus allotment, for an estimated total of 6,000 tezzies at issuance.  If the price crashes hard at the outset, I may double my stake... but it is very important to keep in mind that enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies is at a fever pitch right now, and it may take a long time for Tezos to prove itself, if it ever does.  Thus, anyone participating in the ICO must understand that it is a 100% completely speculative investment that can most definitely become worthless.

Here is a good discussion on Reddit regarding some of the concerns surrounding Tezos, my apologies for not having posted this sooner: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6am251/what_are_everyones_thoughts_on_tezos_coinss_ico/

I think these guys have a shot at something big, but the massive upfront crowdfund does make the opportunity to participate a little less appetizing. :strokebeard:


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: John Nada] * 1
    #24548211 - 08/12/17 12:55 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

I rung the register on about one third of my BTC position here at $3950.  I think $4000 is going to be a level where participants will take some profits, and given the volatility, I am looking to reload what I sold today at around $2900.  I haven't historically traded crypto, but the move up to $4,000 has been so darn fast, I have to imagine a correction will be imminent and figure I'll try for the quick scalp.

John Nada, I can't help you on the pools as I've never used one myself.  I tried mining Ether with the Geth client on my dual GPU's, but after a week of 100% dedicated runtime with no blocks to show for it, I decided mining wasn't really for me, given my current equipment.  However, if I were so inclined to try again, I would probably do it via a pool.  Just don't have the experience to recommend any at the current juncture.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 1
    #24548317 - 08/12/17 01:53 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Stonehenge said:
Good job cashing in at 3950, how did you do that, what exchange?




XBT/USD has been bouncing around the $3900 level for the past four hours on Kraken, with trading volume of around ~500btc/hr at this level.  Kraken's execution is somewhat laggy, and they regularly have connectivity issues on high volume days, but you can enter complex/GTC orders, and they automatically credited me with BCH during the fork earlier this month so I'm OK with the minor issues for now (the majority of my crypto is held off-exchange anyway).  In my experience, connectivity issues plague all of the exchanges during high volume periods, so I think that's just something one has to deal with during these relatively early days of trading crypto.


Quote:

I got some yesterday at ~3400 which seemed like sticking my neck out but up it went.



Yeah, I've been watching your notes in another thread on your buys.  So far they have been working very well for you.  One thing I would draw your attention to however, is that your posts are absolutely overflowing with unbridled enthusiasm (which I can understand when you're on the winning side of a trade).  But candidly, a tiny part of the reason I decided to sell a portion this morning was because of your posts.  I do believe the future of crypto is bright, and I think BTC will find itself well above current levels.  However, when enthusiasm reaches a fever pitch and everyone thinks it's "to the moon", it's often not long before that enthusiasm peaks and a counter trend develops, even if only on a short term basis.  I have been seeing a flurry of major news outlets publishing articles on crypto's meteoric rise, and I believe that is one of the reasons why we have been seeing such huge upside momentum over the past couple of weeks, starting at the fork, but really blasting off over the past week.


Quote:

How would we feel if we sell now and it goes past 10k before correcting? Pissed off no doubt...



It would be a bummer for sure, but you must remember that I still have skin in the game.  If there's one thing I've learned over the 10+ years I have been actively trading stocks and options, it is never to regret taking a profit.  An equally important lesson has been, forget about going all-in and all-out.  Doing so is akin to believing that you are a perfect market timer, which you won't be.  If I can catch the middle 60-80% of a given move, I'm very happy.  Scale in and scale out.  Trade around a core position if you have the time and inclination, which is exactly what I'm doing here; Selling a portion of an extremely profitable trade, with a plan to reload at a specific support level, including a contingency to modify buy and sell targets depending on the technical pattern development of future price action.  I don't suspect I will ever not be holding BTC, but when you have a position that has vastly outperformed any other asset class in a very short period of time, it's worth taking some profits.  If nothing else, it'll keep your head clear because you have the security cushion of being able to take advantage of unforeseen selloffs.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 2
    #24548703 - 08/12/17 05:01 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

There ya go with that moon shot again. :wink: :biggrin:

Honestly, when I look at the chart as it stands today, I could make a case that it's pretty much gone to the moon already.  This is a weekly view, put it on a monthly view and it appears even more parabolic.

   

One small piece of wisdom I have learned throughout my experience in the markets is that pretty much everyone looks like a genius when the market is strong.  Crypto has been unbelievably strong, so anyone with skin in the game is making amazing returns.  But if history is any guide, it won't always be that way.  It is only during the hard times in the market that one may differentiate good traders from bad, and we haven't really had hard times in crypto since Mt Gox went bankrupt in 2014 (I even have a claim for nearly 40 btc from that whole fiasco).

While I do believe we will see higher prices for this asset class, there is always an ebb and flow, and the moves of the past few months (especially the last couple of weeks) have been so huge that there is bound to be a reversion to the mean.  Take it for what it's worth, and try not to play "all in vs all out", scale in and out incrementally, trading around a core position.  Sell a bit when everything looks like it will never stop going higher, buy it back when people start to panic in a selloff.


Do I honestly believe we will see $2900/btc again?  Doesn't seem far off to me, particularly if we view it through the lens of history:
  • 39% selloff between June > August 2016
  • 35% selloff in January 2017
  • 33% selloff in March 2017
  • 39% selloff between June > July 2017

That is some incredible volatility :whoa: ... and we've spiked 121% in the last month alone.  My target buy point of $2900 is 27.5% below today's high.  Given how frequently we've seen 30%+ selloffs over the past year, it definitely appears to be within the realm of possibility, and (hopefully) a good trade.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 2
    #24549101 - 08/12/17 08:08 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Stonehenge said:
I'm just saying if you hold out for that price (2900) you may not be able to buy any more of it.



True enough, which is why I mitigated such a risk by selling only a minority of my total holdings at this level.  If the price continues to rise, I will still be benefitting.  If the price falls and builds a base above $2900, I will consider that a new support level and if the price breaks out from that base, I will likely put what I sold today back to work at whatever level that turns out to be.  The numbers I work with are not absolute, I'm only mentioning where my levels are right here, right now, given the current data set.  Levels are always subject to change as the developing price action warrants.

BTC is in fact breaking through $4,000 on Kraken as I'm writing this, and if I were actively trading, this would be a short-term buy signal for me without a doubt (I'm obviously not the only one who feels this way, as the price just spiked up to $4,150 during the writing of this sentence).  However, due to the relative lack of liquidity and slow trade execution in BTC, I will stick with my plan to book some profits and wait for selling pressure to present itself, and subsequently stabilize, before putting those funds back to work.

Quote:

What I say is that first of all this is not a stock. Obvious enough but look at the differences. [Stocks] can be ruined by events such as takata and the exploding airbags. Their success often depends on the ceo and management in general. BTC has none of those factors. We can discuss that part.



I want to play devil's advocate for the purpose of allowing my own theory and discipline to evolve.  On that, I would contend that BTC does have unknown risk factors that could affect it similarly to how sudden major liability or mismanagement can negatively impact a publicly traded stock.  Such "black swan" events could be vulnerabilities that are as yet uncovered in the BTC protocol, or one that could be inadvertently introduced during the impending Segwit2x improvement proposal (or any future improvement proposal or lack of necessary improvement proposal altogether).  Governance conflicts such as those that led to the BCH fork could become more pervasive and undermine confidence by dividing the miners to a greater extent.  A malicious group of miners and nodes could consolidate power to achieve 51%+ of the network hashrate, and thus the ability to nefariously manipulate the blockchain.  A more efficient and/or robust cryptocurrency could surpass bitcoin's market capitalization and become the dominant player in the space, at the expense of bitcoin.

Now of course, these scenarios are low probability and bitcoin has proven resilient thus far, which is one of the reasons big money is starting to pay attention to it.  But to believe that bitcoin is an asset class that carries no risk is folly, as there is always risk even if it may not be clearly understood or anticipated.  I again reiterate that I believe the future of crypto is very bright, and that this is indeed an exciting time to be involved.  I also encourage anyone with discretionary assets available, to absolutely diversify into some bitcoin and ether.  It is viable technology, although there are many players coming onto the scene everyday, so remember that this is still a largely speculative investment period.  Ultimately, there will need to be more widespread adoption (i.e. real world functional business use) to sustain and grow the current market capitalization of the cryptocurrency space.  For what it's worth, I do think that will happen.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: geokills] * 1
    #24555233 - 08/15/17 08:34 AM (6 years, 5 months ago)

Just a quick note that I sold another tranche of BTC this morning.  I was actually trying to sell it last night before bed when BTC/USD was near $4,500.  Unfortunately, my coins were held off-exchange in a private wallet, and an hour after initiating the transfer, I got tired of waiting for confirmation on the exchange and went to bed.  Too bad, as by the time I woke up BTC/USD had fallen back to $4,000 and is presently knifing through that level with some considerable downside momentum.  I have a small order in to re-enter at $3200, but I still think my original buy target of $2900 has a decent chance of being hit.  Will just have to wait and see... The move higher over the past couple of weeks has been so unbelievably sharp that I can't imagine we're not going to see a significant correction before the summer is out.

Respect the balance of power.  When buying interest goes parabolic, driven by seemingly never ending positive news flow and then suddenly reverses sharply on high volume, this indicates overhead supply from those who soaked up early supply and are sitting on fat unrealized gains, leaving only the lowest common denominator (i.e. least capitalized) traders to buy high, taking those who bought low out for a nice profit.  Ultimately, just as buyers were exhausted, sellers will become exhausted and price will stabilize, rinse and repeat.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 1
    #24555328 - 08/15/17 09:26 AM (6 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Stonehenge said:
How much miner fee did you pay? I find mine go through fairly fast. Even with a tiny fee like 10 to 25 cents per coin it goes through in an hour or two usually now.



Paid the max on the slider scale via BitcoinCore.  I think the delay was on Kraken's end, perhaps on account of requiring a higher number of confirmations before crediting the account, as I sent some to the Bittrex exchange, paid only the average miner fees and it showed up in a half hour.  Transfer showed as pending on Kraken very quickly, but took forever to become available for use.  Oh well, a profit is a profit.

As an aside, the reason I moved a portion of my BTC to Bittrex was to pick up some NEO coins, a rebranding of China's dominant blockchain AntShares, offering one of the more robust smart blockchain technologies available today: https://neo.org


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 1
    #24559057 - 08/16/17 08:07 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

Neo is more akin to Ethereum than to Bitcoin, in that its blockchain is designed to do a lot more beyond functioning as a simple distributed ledger and transfer mechanism.  I sold some more bitcoin today at $4350.  At this point, I've sold about 70% of my BTC.  I can't say I'm bearish on it, not by a long shot as the chart is strong as death... but the gains have been extraordinary and I just can't shake my discipline.  I could make the case for an unconfirmed inclined head and shoulders pattern developing here.  The head tops out at ~$4500, the right shoulder's neck line would be around $4000-4100, which if broken (using traditional technical analysis) would indicate a minimum downside target of $3500-$3700.  I would be a fool to state with any certainty that this is bound to happen, but it is something basic for me to sink my teeth into nevertheless.

I will look to reload on weakness, although if we do breakout above $4500 before I get a chance to buy on weakness, I will very likely buy that breakout.  However, reloading on a breakout would be done with about half of the position size I would have taken on weakness, as breakouts can fail and I would still want some wiggle room to take advantage of such a scenario.


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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: Stonehenge] * 2
    #24560400 - 08/17/17 12:46 PM (6 years, 5 months ago)

I have my bids in for BTC, but I'm finding my time better spent on stocks today.  Had liquidated my entire trading portfolio earlier in the week and ripped on some SPY puts and UVXY calls and common, which have also been liquidated as of this writing.  Suspecting the market has farther to fall, as this is the second probe through the S&P's 50 day moving average inside of two weeks, which is fairly ominous, but I don't want to carry large exposure overnight.

Back on topic, CNBC published a fascinating interview with one of PayPal's early officers regarding blockchain technology that I came across this morning...

Quote:

David Sacks: Cryptocurrency fulfills the 'original vision' we tried to build at PayPal
Source: CNBC - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/david-sacks-cryptocurrency-interview.html
By: Eric Jackson - 8/14/2017

David Sacks is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley. He was the COO of PayPal more than 15 years ago, which made him a charter member of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of influential Silicon Valley investors and execs that also includes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

Sacks started Yammer in 2008 and later sold it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, and he was an early investor in Facebook, Palantir, Uber, SpaceX and Airbnb. Most recently, he served as CEO of HR software start-up Zenefits, and steered that company through some legal and financial pitfalls after replacing founding CEO Parker Conrad.

With bitcoin prices hitting new highs, I wanted to talk to him about how he views the rise of cryptocurrencies this year and what he thought of Howard Marks' recent comments in his investor letter that these digital assets "aren't real."

Here's an edited version of our conversation from last week:

Eric Jackson: As someone involved with PayPal at the beginning, what intrigues you most about the rise of these digital assets?

David Sacks: After PayPal I never thought I would get interested in payments again. But bitcoin is fulfilling PayPal's original vision to create "the new world currency." We actually had T-shirts printed in 1999 with that mission statement.

A payment is just a credit to one account and a debit to another. That's a database entry. We believed that, if we could get enough people to participate, money would never need to leave the system. PayPal could become the database of money.

We added features like interest and debit cards so you'd never have to withdraw funds to the legacy banking system. When we got acquired by eBay, that project kind of stopped.

But cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are now fulfilling that original vision. They are doing it in a decentralized way (with a decentralized database called the blockchain) whereas PayPal tried to do it in a centralized way.

Jackson: You recently tweeted that you thought cryptocurrencies have the chance to be Web 3.0. What did you mean by that?

Sacks: It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the internet of money.

The big development since the emergence of bitcoin itself is that the underlying enabling technology, the blockchain, has been turned into a developer platform. The leading platform is called ethereum. It's a platform for creating new kinds of decentralized apps and cryptocurrencies (or "tokens" or "coins"). It's also created a new funding source for this innovation in the form of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). So we have all the ingredients necessary for a whole new wave of innovation.

For those of us who lived through the dot-com era, this feels reminiscent. You have some of the same speculative excess and random enrichment. But you can also feel that something revolutionary is happening. Money is being made programmable. That's a fundamental change with implications we can still barely see.

Jackson: That brings to mind the recent investor letter which Oaktree's Howard Marks sent out in which he said that Bitcoin and other digital assets aren't real. What do you say to that?

Sacks: Marks isn't wrong to raise an alarm bell about speculation, but he's wrong in saying it's not "real." That's like saying software isn't real. Of course it's real.

Did the U.S. dollar become less real when it stopped being backed by gold? Cryptocurrency is the next step in that same evolution — to make currency more virtual.

In its purest form, currency is confidence. It's a network effect around an agreed-upon medium of exchange that has some promise of scarcity. Bitcoin enforces its scarcity through a combination of cryptography and economic incentives ("cryptoeconomics"). A lot of people find that more comforting than relying on the good faith of a government. In math we trust.

People in the U.S. — and especially longtime participants in the U.S. financial system — have tended to underestimate bitcoin because we have long enjoyed relatively stable political and financial systems. People in parts of the world with less trusted systems have gotten it sooner because almost anything would be preferable to having their life's work trapped in a fiat currency that could collapse or be confiscated at any moment.

Jackson: If the current moment with cryptocurrencies is like the dot-com era, does that make it a bubble, and if so are we in 1995 or 1999?

Sacks: The technology is probably 1995 and the pricing is either 1999 or getting close. It's a combination of something real with a lot of speculation.

What I've been trying to figure out is: Who are the good teams and interesting projects in the space? Also I've been trying to understand the future regulatory environment and invest only in companies that have structured correctly and are likely to survive the inevitable crackdown.

I think the trigger for a big correction is more likely to be regulatory than technical. The SEC provided some important guidance in its DAO report a couple of weeks ago, but we will learn a lot more if there's an enforcement action. That's going to be much more important to the future of this movement than the dreaded bitcoin fork that occurred a couple weeks ago and turned out to be a Y2K-like non-event.

Jackson: So is there going to be a similar three-year nuclear winter when the bubble bursts like what happened after the dot-com boom?

Sacks: Hopefully it will be a soft landing rather than a nuclear winter. It could be a positive thing if all the scammers and pumpers get washed out of the space.

There's going to be a correction though. Many of these ICOs are still just slideware but are getting a Series D type of valuation. They don't deserve that type of valuation at this stage of development. That will rationalize at some point.

Jackson: How are ICOs and future SEC regulation going to mesh?

Sacks: Hopefully the SEC distinguishes between "protocol coins" (which have an actual use in a software ecosystem and should not be viewed as securities) and "asset coins" (which are securities). The public policy think tank CoinCenter has done some excellent work in laying out the legal frameworks and policy rationales for this.

Until now, most of the action in ICOs has been in protocol coins. The better projects have worked hard to structure their tokens so they are not securities.

However, I believe we will soon see the emergence of asset coins (aka traditional asset tokens). These will be securities. It must be done correctly, but it's going to be an exciting area.

Jackson: What securities could tokenize?

Sacks: Almost any illiquid asset today lends itself well to moving onto the blockchain and becoming tokenized. It will create a deeper market with improved price discovery and should increase the value of those assets.

In the long run, even liquid assets like stocks could move onto a blockchain because of the benefits of this platform.

Ultimately this is a technology for maximizing the efficiency of every asset, means of ownership, fluidity of markets, and mechanism of payments. The goal is the optimization and maximization of the world economy. That may make it the biggest revolution of all.

Jackson: Are digital assets and tokenization a long-term threat to traditional venture capital?

Sacks: Yes — in two ways.

First, a lot of start-ups that would have sought venture capital can now raise money through an ICO. I've called this "crypto capitalism" in contradistinction to venture capitalism.

The terms of crypto capital are more favorable to entrepreneurs than venture capital. So any start-up that can ICO will ICO. Whether a start-up can ICO will depend on technical and regulatory suitability, but it could ultimately be a very large category of start-ups.

If so, that will certainly challenge VC. Larger VCs who would typically invest after the ICO will have to compete with hedge funds, which is not a great place to be. VCs who want to invest before the ICO will have to compete with angels to offer a real value-add.

Second, at the level of the VC's own investors, I think LP interests are likely to be tokenized, along with most other illiquid assets. The prestige VC firms will resist this, but there are already a few new VC firms at the margins that are tokenizing. Soon, a few more will do it. Then a few more. Eventually, illiquidity will be a competitive disadvantage in fundraising that only the top firms will be able to justify.

All of this being said, the SEC's rulings in this area will have a huge impact on how this plays out. If those rulings support innovation, that will lead to a more competitive world for VCs, whose world is already quite competitive. But that world will also be more frictionless and efficient.

Sacks posted a tweet storm about this idea:

  • 1/ Crypto Capitalism is the new Venture Capitalism.
  • 2/ With over 1500 ICOs launched or announced, it's becoming clear that any startup that can ICO will ICO.
  • 3/ As more VC moves to CC, VCs will have to become CCs.
  • 4/ Traditional VC categories (seed, early, late, etc) get replaced with CC categories: pre-ICO and post-ICO.
  • 5/ Post-ICO VCs will have to compete with hedge funds. Not a good place to be.
  • 6/ Pre-ICO VCs will need an angel-like value-add. Not a natural place for a lot of them to be.
  • 7/ Ultimately the SEC will determine how large the category of who can ICO is. But it could be quite large.
  • 8/ Most VCs still haven't wrapped their heads around this disruption. More to come. //


Jackson: What are the biggest challenges that still lie ahead for cryptocurrencies?

Sacks: I see three big areas for concern: scalability, slideware and regulatory.

First, the number of transactions per second that either bitcoin or ethereum can handle is still orders of magnitude less than what PayPal or the Visa network can do. It's been estimated that ethereum, which is the main developer platform for decentralized apps, would need a 250x improvement to run a 10 million user app and 25,000x improvement to run a billion-user app like Facebook. That improvement requires real work and involves some risk. There's a product roadmap, but it's going to take years.

Second, most of the ideas out there today for ICOs are still just white papers, or what we used to call "slideware." There is a lot of execution risk in turning these ideas into usable software that actually gets adopted. One fortunate effect of the crypto boom is that it has been helpful in attracting talent to the space. We will need that migration of talent to continue in order to realize the potential.

Third, as we've discussed, will be the extent and nature of regulatory acceptance. The eventual rules governing the application of securities laws to tokens will have a major impact on adoption and innovation in the space, at least in the United States. There is some risk that if the wrong regulatory regime gets adopted in the U.S., then the center of innovation could move to other countries. If blockchains are the next internet, that would be a very unfortunate development for the U.S.

Jackson: We have bitcoin and ethereum plus a number of smaller, lesser-known currencies out there — including the new Filecoin ICO. What lesser-known currencies intrigue you most?

Sacks: I prefer to think in terms of use cases, rather than recommending specific currencies. The most promising use cases to date are: store of value, payments, crowdfunding, file storage, identity management and authentication, prediction markets, escrow, title chains, notary chains, provenance, and supply chains. There are 1,500 ICOs already launched or announced, plus many other blockchain companies, so there's a lot more to come. This is an extremely exciting and fast-moving space.

That said, one admonition I would make to your readers is that most probably shouldn't be investing in ICOs directly. We are seeing white papers for technology that doesn't truly belong on the blockchain or, worse, could be pump-and-dump schemes. Many of the scams originate outside of the United States, so they will be harder to regulate. Just like a lot of retail investors lost money in the dot-com era, the ICO era has the potential to do the same unless people really take the time to understand what they are investing in. A number of professionally managed crypto funds, with real technical expertise to evaluate ICOs, are starting to emerge and may be a safer way to participate than investing directly.

So I would just urge everyone to temper their excitement with sound business judgment. Or does that sound too much like Howard Marks?




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Re: Cryptocurrency Big Dogs: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) [Re: MrMoon] * 1
    #24586673 - 08/28/17 10:12 PM (6 years, 4 months ago)

Monero getting listed in South Korea (and some press about the IRS hunting down crypto tax evaders) really lit a fire under it.  I was watching on its initial post-pop pullback to $70, and even put a bid in around $60, but never got any and thus didn't participate.  Honestly, the velocity by which some of these cryptos move freaks me out a bit.

That being said, Bitcoin is still meandering around above $4,000.  Volatility is starting to squeeze short-term, and the fact that it hasn't had any lasting pullbacks is a pretty bullish sign from a technical standpoint, although I suspect it may need another week or two of sideways action before making a big move, up or down.  The longer it stays up here in a relatively narrow range, the less confident I am that I will be seeing the deep pullback I had hoped for when I liquidated the majority of my position between $3950-4350.  Open hand, I did buy back a little bit of exposure here at $4300.  I can still fathom a test of the $3000 level, but it's open season on crypto and now that institutional sized funds are getting involved, I would expect any deep pullbacks to be met with buying by strong (i.e. well capitalized) hands looking for long term exposure.

For my money, Ether is the most attractive of the majors right here right now.  It is building a cup and handle pattern and marching along its upper bollinger band.  While it still has to clear its all time highs around $400 before reaching blue sky territory (i.e. no overhead supply from regretful buyers who bought at a higher price), I think it's going to test those highs sooner rather than later.

For a more speculative play, I like the consolidation in the Chinese smart blockchain Neo, but for now it's not moving [edit: as if on cue, Neo dives overnight on news that the Chinese government will be regulating the ICO market; fewer ICO's = less demand for Neo from ICO participants.  I take this as a decent entry and added to my position].  This is one I would stash away just to see what happens.  I suspect it has one of the better risk/reward profiles for outsized intermediate term gains.  But while they have a promising platform, they (as with so many of these cryptos) have yet to be proven.  Problems with their development teams or boners on execution could witness big selling.  Hence, this is one of the more speculative of the decent plays in the generally-speculative crypto space.

As an aside, gold is starting to break out, and since gold does carry some correlative aspects to crypto in terms of safehaven allocation, I figured it was worth mentioning.  Recommend January $22 call options on GDX for a bullish breakout.


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Edited by geokills (08/29/17 04:04 PM)


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Re: Cryptocurrency: A Discussion on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Related Projects [Re: sh4d0ws] * 1
    #24591559 - 08/30/17 07:34 PM (6 years, 4 months ago)
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One of the hard lessons I've (thought to have) learned over my decade plus of trading stocks and options, is that the compulsion to overtrade can be unrelenting, and ultimately catastrophic to one's profitability.

That said, I have continued to rebuild my position in Bitcoin, as it has remained relatively stable above $4,000 and over the past few days has been setting fresh all time highs above $4,500.  Trading volume is down somewhat since the mid-August highs around $4,400, which suggests some caution is warranted and that a near term rocket-fueled breakout is probably not in the cards... but you never know.  I have had to to capitulate and repurchase coins I sold approximately 10% lower, as I had reduced my exposure to such an extent that my holdings were negligible, and that's not where I want to be when an asset class that I believe in is setting fresh all time highs.

Short term, Ether has been the more impressive of the two major cryptocurrencies in my view, from a technical review of its price action.  It is now just hugging up against its all time highs with strong upside momentum.  There is a not dissimilar marginal concern of decreasing volume as we have moved from $280 to $380 on ETH, but the volatility has been relatively constrained.  Summer often sees big money on vacation, and it is typically after Labor Day here in the States that major money managers start to place their longer term bets.  It will be interesting to see if and how this affects the crypto markets.

In addition to accumulating BTC, ETH and NEO, I have also started to accumulate OmiseGO (OMG).  This is a relative newcomer on the block, but is attempting to pioneer (amongst other things), the world's first decentralized exchange, which is something I have been eager to see happen.  Combine its impressive ambitions with a rockstar development/advisor team composed of some heavy hitting Ethereum and Bitcoin founders/developers, and the fact that it is being built alongside an existing functional product, and this is one project that appears to have legs (i.e. worthy to wager upon).  Rather than attempt to paraphrase ad nauseum, take a gander at the following document Jun Hasegawa, a founder for the project published earlier this week:
The OmiseGO Project white paper is also attached to this post for those so inclined to review.

And just for shits and giggles, here's a snapshot of the coins under discussion:
  • BTC ~ $4600
  • ETH ~ $380
  • NEO ~ $34
  • OMG ~ $10


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