Bitcoin

Money, investing, mutuals etc
pabenny
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by pabenny » Sat Jul 24 2021 8:57am

Here's a couple of references to central bank views on bitcoin for a start

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/federal- ... 08680.html
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/freedom ... nuary-2010

In a investment bubble people make money as it inflates, but if you're holding when it bursts, you lose the lot. And the nature of a bubble means that no-one can tell when it will finally burst. So investing in it is highly risky.

I do think there may be a floor under btc because of true believers who refuse to acknowledge its weaknesses. But I wouldn't like to say whether that's $10000 or $100000 or just $1000.

planteria
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by planteria » Sun Jul 25 2021 10:30am

quoting central bankers with all that's gone on is a bit odd, i'd be more interested in what you think re Bitcoin yourself.. 'don't get caught in a bubble that bursts' is the extent of it, seemingly.
pabenny wrote:
Sat Jul 24 2021 8:57am
I do think there may be a floor under btc because of true believers who refuse to acknowledge its weaknesses. But I wouldn't like to say whether that's $10000 or $100000 or just $1000.
https://cryptowat.ch/assets/btc : just set the graph to 1Year and you can see a 'floor'.. well above $1,000 and $10,000, but it hasn't reached $100,000 [yet] so you could be more bullish than the consensus at this stage.

Sarah
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by Sarah » Sun Jul 25 2021 5:25pm

Britcoin... not really sure why the fail would troll their £-loving followers like this, but they did it anyway...
The Britcoin revolution! Rishi Sunak plans to introduce official digital currency to rival cash in 'biggest upheaval in the monetary system for centuries'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rency.html

pabenny
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by pabenny » Mon Jul 26 2021 10:34am

planteria wrote:
Sun Jul 25 2021 10:30am
... i'd be more interested in what you think re Bitcoin yourself...
I find Bitcoin inherent problematic in a number of ways
- high energy costs of mining
- high transaction costs (driven by the blockchain processing)
- holding costs (due to need to use a third party wallet)

There are no fundamentals beneath the valuation - with a stock/share, there are tangible assets, there is IP; there are income streams, there are customers. With Bitcoin, there are none of those things. Even gold has utility - jewelry, industrial uses.

Ultimately, btc only has value because someone else will buy it in the belief that they can resell it for even more.

planteria
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by planteria » Mon Jul 26 2021 11:23am

pabenny wrote:
Mon Jul 26 2021 10:34am
- high energy costs of mining
- high transaction costs (driven by the blockchain processing)
- holding costs (due to need to use a third party wallet)
you're spouting, but from a position of ignorance re all three points i'm afraid pab.
* mining ref above - and some wonderful low cost renewables projects are being supported by bitcoin, ref Cathie Wood and solar projects would do it for anyone that wants to understand.
* transaction costs are on layers two/above, are minimal, and are good value in any reasonable volume on the base layer anyway - just looking up Strike if you want to understand (though that's already ref above too) and bitcoin use with remittances incl in El Salvador
* holding costs are negative: we're paid to store our bitcoin (again made clear above). not even a glance of research required re this one, it's that simple.
Sarah wrote:
Sun Jul 25 2021 5:25pm
Britcoin... not really sure why the fail would troll their £-loving followers like this, but they did it anyway...
CBDCs are coming, across the world, and they're going to change our lives: in some ways some of us will really like, and in others that some of us will passionately dislike. the efficiency, if used well, could be great for our public services, benefits, targeting support to those that really need it - if the government had had the tools they'll have in place when our first lock down was introduced, for example.
personally i don't find moving pounds 'digitally' is challenging efficiency/cost-wise now. but the control is going to be on a different level to anything we've ever known, and many will be able to imagine. for those who favour cash in some instances, and value anonymity, it's going to feel like a bleak 'big brother' future. Bitcoin, and potentially other monetary networks, are going to become very appealing to a lot of people who want to operate, at least in part, 'off grid'.

pabenny
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by pabenny » Tue Jul 27 2021 6:54am

I may be misinformed/out of date on costs - although network transaction fees seem somewhat opaque.

But that doesn't affect the (lack of) fundamentals beneath the valuation. A government-backed digital currency is a wholly different proposition to bitcoin and other pseudo-currencies, because, well, they're government-backed. The advocates of crypto are happy to blur the distinction.

Sarah
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by Sarah » Tue Jul 27 2021 9:33am

I've seen a claim that the environmental cost for a bitcoin transaction is an order of tens of thousands of times that for a conventional electronic currency transaction, due to blockchain fundamentals. Not really sure that's meaningful in the wider context of the vast amount of other data that exists and circulates the globe, although in isolation it's still a somewhat interesting and potentially valid point for comparison purposes!

planteria
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by planteria » Tue Jul 27 2021 10:43am

pabenny wrote:
Tue Jul 27 2021 6:54am
The advocates of crypto are happy to blur the distinction.
between cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and CBDCs? if so, not a chance, you're not even close again.

and do you really think that's right Sarah? i'm all for having access to bank branches, for example, but we can't believe that there isn't an environmental cost of building/heating/cooling/transport of staff et al of all of those branches. cf with 'the bank in the cloud'.
as referred to above, just check out Cathie Wood's ESG analysis of bitcoin. some very interesting projects involving bitcoin mining, including combining with solar supply to homes, for example, in which the bitcoin mining element enables the project to be viable. the campaigning against is just that.. it's part of the solution rather than the problem. some of these associated projects could represent great investments too.

Sarah
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by Sarah » Tue Jul 27 2021 11:06am

I doubt that someone calculating the environmental cost of a financial transaction would include bank branches as a consideration, especially if they have an anti-crypto agenda. Not all banks have them and most are reducing their estate. I suspect that statistic I saw was in the 20 minute Elon Musk advertorial that the FT is currently running on YouTube. In fact... yep, it's also here on their website complete with transcript:
TARA SHIRVANI: With 70% of global Bitcoin production being positioned in China, where the grid is very much relying on dirty coal, the production of bitcoins, in itself, produces as much CO2 as a small country.

HANNAH MURPHY: And compare it, for example to Visa. Each Bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of power as 436,000 Visa transactions. So it's hardly environmentally friendly.
"Elon Musk: CO2 saint or sinner?"
https://www.ft.com/video/9cbadf0e-df8a- ... acd11d6702

pabenny
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Re: Bitcoin

Post by pabenny » Tue Jul 27 2021 1:49pm

planteria wrote:
Tue Jul 27 2021 10:43am
pabenny wrote:
Tue Jul 27 2021 6:54am
The advocates of crypto are happy to blur the distinction.
between cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and CBDCs? if so, not a chance, you're not even close again.
Not sure what you mean. CBDCs are, well, backed by central banks and so if they ever come to anything will be a different beast from crypto that is backed by.. err... nothing.

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