How crypto could change the world and Why Cryptocurrency was invented in the first place.
People used to pay each other in gold and silver. Difficult to transport. Difficult to divide.
Paper money was invented. A claim to gold in a bank vault. Easier to transport and divide.
Banks gave out more paper money than they had gold in the vault. They ran “fractional reserves”. A real money maker. But every now and then, banks collapsed because of runs on the bank.
Central banking was invented. Central banks would be lenders of last resort. Runs on the bank were thus mitigated by banks guaranteeing each other’s deposits through a central bank. The risk of a bank run was not lowered. Its frequency was diminished and its impact was increased. After all, banks remained basically insolvent in this fractional reserve scheme.
Banks would still get in trouble. But now, if one bank got in sufficient trouble, they would all be in trouble at the same time. Governments would have to step in to save them.
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All ties between the financial system and gold were severed in 1971 when Nixon decided that the USD would no longer be exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold. This exacerbated the problem, because there was now effectively no limit anymore on the amount of paper money that banks could create.
From this moment on, all money was created as credit. Money ceased to be supported by an asset. When you take out a loan, money is created and lent to you. Banks expect this freshly minted money to be returned to them with interest. Sure, banks need to keep adequate reserves. But these reserves basically consist of the same credit-based money. And reserves are much lower than the loans they make.
This led to an explosion in the money supply. The Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006. But the ECB currently reports a yearly increase in the supply of the euro of about 5%.
This leads to a yearly increase in prices. The price increase is somewhat lower than the increase in the money supply. This is because of increased productivity. Society gets better at producing stuff cheaper all the time. So, in absence of money creation you would expect prices to drop every year. That they don’t is the effect of money creation.
What remains is an inflation rate in the 2% range.
Banks have discovered that they can siphon off all the productivity increase + 2% every year, without people complaining too much. They accomplish this currently by increasing the money supply by 5% per year, getting this money returned to them at an interest.
Apart from this insidious tax on society, banks take society hostage every couple of years. In case of a financial crisis, banks need bailouts or the system will collapse.
Apart from these problems, banks and governments are now striving to do away with cash. This would mean that no two free men would be able to exchange money without intermediation by a bank. If you believe that to transact with others is a fundamental right, this should scare you.
The absence of sound money was at the root of the problem. We were force-fed paper money because there were no good alternatives. Gold and silver remain difficult to use.
When it was tried to launch a private currency backed by precious metals (Liberty dollar), this initiative was shut down because it undermined the U.S. currency system. Apparently, a currency alternative could only thrive if “nobody” launched it and if they was no central point of failure.
What was needed was a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. This was what Satoshi Nakamoto described in 2008. It was a response to all the problems described above. That is why he labeled the genesis block with the text: “03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”. Bitcoin was meant to be an alternative to our current financial system.
So, if you find yourself religiously checking some cryptocurrency’s price, or bogged down in discussions about the “one true bitcoin”, or constantly asking what currency to buy, please at least remember that we have bigger fish to fry.
Given how early in the Rogers Adoption Curve for Crypto we are, I would like to take a moment so we can just imagine what this technological revolution, which I consider is the next huge step for human kind, could bring. I will emphasize some socioeconomic implications of descentralization, but I`m mostly interested in listening to, and debating your inputs.
Blockchain and Crypto Currency are here to change the world forever.
The implications of decentralization
As you may know one of the core proposals of blockchain is decentralization, and with it we can optimize so many processes that this alone could be the revolution we are talking about. By eliminating intermediaries, we can save on the cost they add to the supply chain ensuring those that create the value, keep it. Or we can simply save on fees.
To quote the man himself:
Whereas most technologies tend to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, blockchains automate away the center. Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly. – Vitalik Buterin.
To put it simply, imagine that you replace Binance (a centralized company) with a robot. A robot that you have programed so well, whose code you publicly audit, and that is so safe you can trust it with billions of dollars in liquidity pools, so it proceeds to host and operate the trading platform by itself. In case you didn’t know, this is already a reality! Many people here trade on those platforms on a daily basis.
But this goes beyond replacing Centralized Exchanges with Automated Market Makers, Airbnb with a blockchain DApp that connects landlords and costumers, or even banks with complex smart contracts that allow you to borrow, save, tokenize physical assets, and so on. This goes way beyond.
Here is where I start to fantasize of the future. Think about replacing capital itself, think about getting rid of corporations. Lets dream of a world with DAOs massive adoption.
With DeFi, we may no longer need a company like Nestlé…
And specially not their investors. Of course, you will still need the people administrating, planning, monitoring, generating new ideas that adapt to their context, and creating innovative solutions for a complex world only humans can comprehend. But the figure of shareholders and CEOs that steal all the value that workers create and leave them with a tiny fraction of it, can disappear. This can be the basis of a once in a century transformation.
Just as an example: Nestlè’s coffee growers in Colombia keep less than 10% of the final sale price, and barely make a living on it, so are actually abandoning the rural areas.
With Blockchain, DeFi and Smart Contracts, people like you and me can collectively fund such an operation, and then agree upon specific terms like wages by direct democracy, voting with our crypto holdings. Then we would proceed to allocate funds, hire “developers” which would ultimately be regular office jobs that keep the organization functioning. Once in operation we would frequently vote on decisions and results, which would ultimately keep the highest level of accountability for people working in the organization. This is already happening by the way, this is how some blockchain projects work today. We just haven’t applied it to industrial and physical supply chains yet.
Let’s go back to our project to replace Nestle. Imagine that an organization’s main goal is not to maximize profits for shareholders and bonuses for CEOs anymore. Instead, it’s the interest of regular people and the company’s collaborators that drive its actions.
Most likely, you and I will want to consolidate an efficient and effective supply chain, that is sustainable and keeps the dignity and wellbeing of its collaborators as a guiding principle. We are not longer at their mercy on issues like climate change, we can now take immediate action against it, or stop endangering and hoarding water supplies in classic Nestle fashion.
Also, we are making profits, so we are redistributing capital, and improving our quality of life, which will be most notorious in the most vulnerable communities, usually those that extract/harvest/mine raw materials.
This is what could happen with the blockchain descentralization of business. And you could apply it to pretty much anything, but maybe initially it could be for low labor and capital intensive businesses.
I’ll give you another example. I work for a solar power multinational company. If you don’t know it, solar energy is essentially a financial product, most people working in these companies don’t care about the world, its simply that solar is a very safe and lucrative hustle, and all investors care about is having a nice return of investment (ROI). As of now, my company works exclusively for large scale corporate clients or the state itself, given that’s where the nice ROIs are, since they give you the projects that allow you to place large capitals at once. This means, as of today, we blatantly ignore the regular people that seek for our help and funding to power their farms and/or houses with solar energy. They’re not that profitable my boss tells me. This is shitty, and I’ve thought of quitting several times.
But back to the point. Now, imagine once again, we get rid of the institutional investors. Now you and me create Reddit Solar Co, a DAO. Our only purpose is to facilitate access to electricity to those without it, and to advance in the urban implementation of renewable energy. We help the world, make dividends that are automatically distributed by the DAO, and also our own Crypto is rising in value.
So, we just created a DAO that manufactures and distributes food globally right? Or maybe Reddit Solar Co. As an organization born on the blockchain, we won’t have to adapt to the state of the art innovations on the crypto world like an old steam locomotive attempting to adapt a warp drive on top of it. We were born in space.
From the beginning, our Ethereum based DAO could adopt VeChain’s solution for supply chains, Cardano will help us to give an integral solution to the unbanked communities that provide our raw material, they now have IDs, access to DeFi and education. The land deeds and legal documents that relate to our enterprise are certified by LTO Network, we move money internationally with XRP or Stellar, and don’t worry, we use Polkadot to ensure proper blockchain interoperability.
Too complex for you? Don’t worry, you don’t even have to know or care about this, leave that to others. You’re into finance. Maybe sales is your thing and there’s a little Michael Scott in you. Or you`re into social work and want to supervise our community engagement at the start of the supply chain. Just go do your thing! You don’t necessarily have to be involved in all of this.
All you know is you do your job and receive your crypto salary.
Just as computers and the internet changed the world forever, and not only had economic implications but also changed our culture, routines, work lives and ways to interact with each other, crypto will. We are just so early; that all we can do for now is dream.
You’re having too much hope in humanity dude…
Sure, I may be making some optimistic assumptions on the motivations of humans, I may be saying that we will use this technology for good, and that we care about each other, and that’s one way to look at it. But we could also argue in favor of this from a sceptic perspective: even if you don’t care about the collective wellbeing of your community, it’s in your interest to live in a safer environment right? Ergo you want to reduce poverty. Its also in your interest to stop global warming so organized human life can continue to exist, or to make sure you and your children will have water and food in 50 years, that’s why you will want to use technology for good even if you only care about yourself. Also lets not forget the powerful incentive of profits. Crypto has the clear potential to achieve all of this.
Most of the current generation of crypto projects will be ready and operating within the next 3 years, so all we will need by then is the will to use this technology for good, and the vision to change the world.
This is just the beginning, we will be killing industries but giving birth to others we could have never imagined before.
Cons of Crypto: A coin called “Chia” is gobbling up 1,125,000 TB storage per day. Just to farm this token that no one seems to use. This takes resource wastage to a whole new level.
Chia is a coin that works on a proof of time space consensus. I.e. to farm this coin, one must allot dedicated hard drives and allot the space (known as plots), and get rewarded for it. Sounds good on paper, and one could even be tempted to think they may put that spare 500 GB space left and earn some passive income on it.
Except, this one already requires industrial grade storage space, just to farm a token that has almost zero adoption anywhere.
As you can see from this coin’s explorer, the storage is growing by almost 1000 PiB per day, in the last few days.
So a growth of 1000 PiB per day => almost 1125000 TB of storage per day is added onto this network, just to mine these coins. This equates to 1.1 million 1 TB drives added per day just to support farming on this network!
Pros of Crypto: – People in Hong Kong Use The Crypto and Blockchain To Fight Against Media Censorship Reference
Network effect and staying power BTC is the first virtual currency to solve the double-spending issue. The Bitcoin Protocol offered a solution to the Byzantine Generals’ Problem with a blockchain network structure, a notion first created by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991.
Bitcoin undoubtedly has a ‘brand’. It has perhaps the most substantial name recognition of any existing crypto asset and is basically synonymous with ‘cryptocurrency’ to the lay public.
Despite near constant proclamations of its demise, Bitcoin has not died. One could argue that – as the progenitor of cryptocurrencies – its longevity and continued profitability is itself an investment thesis.
As the number of public addresses, daily active users (DAU), and large holders/long term holders continue to trend upwards, it becomes harder and harder to ‘put the genie back in the bottle’:
Bitcoin’s valuation is well described by the most fundamental factor intrinsic to its network: the number of addresses that hold BTC. Applying Metcalfe’s law, the total value of Bitcoin’s network is well explained, with an R squared of 93.8%, simply by the square of its user base, n.
Store of value to hedge inflation
Over its lifetime, narratives of Bitcoin’s value have gone through several shifts, from the original cypherpunk vision in the white paper of p2p ‘e-cash’ to today’s ‘digital gold’ narrative.
One theme underlying both of these points, however, is a reaction to or distrust in the current financial system. This was true during the financial crisis of 2008 (see the genesis block message) and is still relevant today with unprecedented levels of monetary and fiscal stimulus being pursued by governments worldwide. Government deficits and central bank money printing may lead to inflation and thus drive investors towards assets like gold or Bitcoin to preserve their wealth.
This notion that BTC is a store of value to hedge inflation has certainly caught on in the last few years – not just from institutional or hedge fund investors, but from companies like MicroStrategy, Square and Tesla adding BTC to their balance sheets.
Like gold, BTC is scarce – only 21M will ever exist. It is estimated that 3M-3.7M BTC have been lost forever/will never enter circulating supply again.. One estimate is that 14.5M BTC are essentially illiquid.
To take one example, Grayscale’s BTC trust – which has no redemption process and thus effectively takes BTC out of circulation – alone holds over 600k BTC.
Like gold, BTC is also divisible, interchangeable and durable. Unlike gold, however, BTC is a digital asset and is thus easier to purchase, move and store.
If the store of value narrative endures, Bitcoin may have significant upside in supplanting a share of gold’s use case (estimated to be a $10T asset class).
Development
One of the common counterarguments for Bitcoin is that it is a ‘dinosaur’ with little technological improvement or development (as compared to its more innovative successors).
Segregated Witness (SegWit): a protocol upgrade proposal that went live in August 2017. This protocol upgrade effectively increased the number of transactions that can be stored in a single block, enabling the network to handle more transactions per second (TPS)
Lightning Network: is a second-layer micropayment solution for scalability
While other blockchains boast enterprise development, some companies are indeed building on Bitcoin. For example, Microsoft recently launched a Decentralized Identifier (DID) network (ION) on the Bitcoin mainnet
Ideological foundation for a potentially new financial system, without the old, decrepit, and corrupt banks and middle men.
The Environmental Argument is almost pointless, as it is the most efficient way of transporting millions of dollars around the world in mere seconds. And I mean efficient in all ways, there us no other single asset in the world capable of transporting this amount of capital wealth with such a low environmental impact or financial cost. If not, try moving 4 millions dollars of gold. Also, as Btc increases in value, this gets more on more efficient.
Innovation of the technology and the first mover advantage in capturing this new market’s value/future value. Btc will always be at the top as mainstream adoption continues relating Crypto=Bitcoin.
Ability to be bankless, with proven liquidity (thanks to Tesla) and with the best performing asset creation-to-date.
Inability of third parties to do anything about your Btc holding without the seed phrase. Government’s can hardly tax it if, as Michael Saylor put it: “I had a boating accident and forgot my seedphrase, I don’t have acces to my crypto anymore so I can’t be taxed”. In a way, nobody but yourself can prove that you still have access to those funds, so, can they truly be taxable?
The S2F model and updated S2F XA model. So far they have been scarily precise. Otherwise, Metcalfe’s law assures anyone that bitcoin may never go to 0, as the network is already strong enough to provide a certain degree of value.
Bitcoin has been around way too long, and to the uneducated it is the face of the crypto world.
Bitcoin has no smart contracts.
Bitcoin is slow.
Bitcoin fees are expensive.
People see it as an investment, not a currency they can use and spend. In the end this is not defined as it’s supposed to be used, but only as store of value. It’s at the state of gold, not of a coin.
Bitcoin has become outdated, the only thing it’s useful for is investing, day to day transactions are useless.
Bitcoin’s largest advantage and in fact it’s greatest disadvantage is that it’s the oldest cryptocurrency. Since then technology has evolved so much to become more energy and time efficient.
Bitcoin is like the grandpa of crypto and we should look at it as such. Admire it for its wisdom because it has taught us so much, but also acknowledge that each of its children are trying to make their own marks on the world.
It’s huge environmental impact due to its proof-of-work concept. BTC has a carbon footprint like Singapore, uses as much electrical energy as the Netherlands, and produces as much electronic waste as Luxembourg. This is a huge problem and needs to be accepted more widely.
It’s slow. with an average transaction time of like 10 minutes, we are pretty far from instant transactions – this might not be a problem in all cases, but is one when one would like to use it like a currency, as it was planned originally
High transaction costs – not ETH-high, but too high
Bitcoin takes a lot of energy to mine and use. As of May 2021, a single Bitcoin transaction takes as much energy as 760,201 VISA credit card payments (source). To keep this in context, the world banking system uses about two times as much energy as the Bitcoin network (source)
Bitcoin is difficult to mine. GPUs and CPUs don’t have enough computing power to compete with other miners, meaning so-called Application-Specific Integrated Chips (ASICs) are required. These are expensive – generally in the range of $1000 to $6000, depending on how new the model is (source). This restricts Bitcoin’s mining pool to people and groups who have enough wealth to invest in ASICs, which threatens the goal of keeping cryptocurrency decentralized.
Bitcoin transactions can take a long time to be confirmed. The average time for a transaction to confirmed once is 10 minutes (source), but for a payment to be absolutely final, it needs to be included in multiple blocks to ensure consensus in the mining pool. This takes even longer, sometimes up to one hour (source, for 6 confirmations).
Bitcoin transactions require expensive mining fees. At the moment, the average fee for a single transaction is $14.35, making Bitcoin unsuitable for day to day use (source).
Bitcoin lacks many features available in other coins, including smart contracts (programs run on and enforced by the blockchain, see here), anonymity (source), and CPU mining (allowing anyone with a CPU to mine, thus making the network more democratic and less susceptible to being taken over by large groups).
Crypto is definitely a good way to make money. However, you might end up finding the tech interesting. I know that I sure did, and having a sound understanding of your investment will make a big difference in your ability to hodl. It doesn’t have to be much, just a few YouTube videos.
Strategies when it comes to cryptocurrencies The HODL’er: you buy and basically you never sell. It’s kind of the holy grail of strategies when it comes to crypto according to this sub. Buy and forget and check back 10 years later. You’re a millionaire, Harry! No stress and no maintenance. You can even buy more over time and continue stacking your fat holdings. Do this if you believe in crypto long term
The Goal Setter: set a goal and sell when you reach that goal. Maybe it’s 3x and I’m out. Or maybe it’s make enough for student loans and I’m out. Or maybe it’s $1MM and sell half. Can be anything. Stress depends on your goal.
The Active Trader: Buy high and sell low
The Swing Trader: Some people are good at trading – they usually wait for those days where the whole market bleeds 20-30% in a day then they buy and wait for the bounce and they sell. Rinse and repeat. But they also risk missing out on the rocket jumps. But they also minimize the risk of being in the market when there’s a crash. In the end they might be able to increase their total holdings but for most beginners they lose rather than win. High stress and high maintenance.
The Cycle Trader: you DCA in during the bear market when everything has lost 80-90% of its ATH (alternatively, a year before the Bitcoin halving). Then you slowly sell off everything approximately a year after crypto starts trending up and enters a bull market. So this method has worked well for many people – they don’t necessarily time the top right but they continue to increase their holdings over several cycles. This might be the smart move if you have discipline. The risk is that history no longer repeats itself. It has worked the past 2 cycles but it’s not guaranteed it’ll work again. Medium stress, low maintenance
The Arbitrager: usually they have algos do the trading for them. They minimize risk and just arbitrage the price differences between exchanges. They might not care about crypto and just want to make money. They miss out on the bull run but also miss out on the bear market. Low stress, medium maintenance.
The Moon Chaser: 1000x or bust. Forget $10K eth or $100K btc, they want the next shiba or safe moon. They buy coins with market caps in the millions and hope for the pump to sell. This is like the lottery ticket buyers of crypto. High stress, high maintenance, smooth brain
–HODL, dont sell with a loss if you believe in your Coin long term.
–Stake, staking is really important! I cant tell you enough, if we are in a bear market and you can stake for a few years you can easily get 20-30% more coins then you have right now.
–DCA, keep buying. The bear market is where you DCA, dont stop buying. Right now is where you can get coins cheap! Just dont stop DCAing cause you are scared! Pick projects you believe in long term and keep buying at low prices!
–Get rid of coins you dont believe in long term, shitcoins. Many wont survive the bear market.
–Research coins for the next bull run!
Crypto Currency Market Cap Visualized during the Pandemic
bybit has locked me away due to working in america, so i would ask here. i was gonna get an RNS.ID Palau residential ID, but they don’t have addresses yet, so it wouldn’t work on bybit. it seems like it’s down to: phemex (i like it, lower liquidity tho, slower platform, kinda high fees. no issues with kyc so far) orangex (idk shit ab this one) BYDFi (seems finicky but i’d be willing to give it a go, lacking some features phemex has) kucoin??? heard yes and nos for them. apex.exchange (DEX but only offers 30x leverage) along with this, does anyone have a list of exchanges that take RNS.ID as your kyc? thanks guys 🙂 p.s. if you can tell me how to get in to bybit without any id etc i’ll forever be in debt submitted by /u/tossaway-acct [link] [comments]
Today during the Bitcoin halving, I converted some balance to Crypto and tried withdrawing withdrawing ($5,000) to my own Ledger self-custody address. I've had over quarter million in Bitcoin stocks/ETFs, but the moment my account tries actually withdrawing some Crypto, all my funds get frozen and my short-term options are stuck. Even after 2FA, my account was frozen. Thought the Crypto Wallet provided on Robinhood was owned by me, but apparently not. https://preview.redd.it/de1opoaxmkvc1.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=74b44c02d84eb4ae1ab97ad72807b1369a373a5d Any access to customer support is now blocked and their phone line directs me to livechat (which is blocked). https://preview.redd.it/nai1bzl1mkvc1.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=241d60479dfb82b03626ca993a7897c55b102066 Good reminder to use Coinbase, Kraken, or any other exchange, just not Robinhood. You can buy Crypto for months on end from ETFs/stocks, but the moment you try to withdraw, they freeze your account. submitted by /u/MineETH [link] [comments]
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Thanks to everyone who participated to this public audit (during the last days or months). Thank you to everyone who has been adamant, persistent in the last period and finally today (April 18th UTC) you have all your XMR coins in your wallets and decided to celebrate Monero's tenth birthday this way. Almost all exchanges seem to be up and running right now and it is possible to get real XMR coins from them. There seems to be enough coins in the market to cover the withdrawals now. Over the past year, it looks like the following exchanges have been trouble-free (from XMR's point of view): ✔ Kraken ✔ Bitfinex ✔ WhiteBit In the last period, especially these exchanges had problems with XMR withdrawals (for more than 24 hours): ⚠ CoinEx (duration: few days) ⚠ KuCoin (duration: few days) ❌ HTX (duration: half a year) ❌ PoloniEx (duration: half a year) ❌ WazirX (duration: forever) It is true that some exchanges officially pay out XMR, but they have not had various other coins for many months (or years) and customers are desperate, for example HitBTC with DOGE or TradeOgre with KAS. Today it's problems with some dog coin and tomorrow it could be XMR. So you better avoid them (or to be very careful). Also, watch out for exchanges that don't like public audits, don't actively promote NYKNYC, don't credit the deposit immediately (but it takes several days) and their subreddit is full of withdrawal complaints - such as Gate. 💀 TradeOgre 💀 HitBTC ⚠ Gate What can be said about instant exchanges? Most of them are only connected to the veins of some CEX and do not have their own coins. So if CEX is causing problems, these are immediately transferred to the customer. It should be taken into account and worship instant exchanges that have their own coin stocks, such as: ✔ eXch ✔ BitcoinVN Many exchanges are delisting Monero. How does it always turn out? Customers have trouble getting their XMR coins and most of them give up. See what happened at Waves, Bittrex, Newton ... Let's take now a closer look at Binance delisting: On February 20, it announced delisting and subsequently closed XMR withdrawals, these are opened only occasionally (although it was promised that they would work without problems until May 20). Based on these observations, it can be assumed that most services have fractional reserves (unless proven otherwise). The big Binance itself claims in its proof of reserves that it holds all reserves of only about 30 coins (but it has more than 300 coins on offer). submitted by /u/MoneroFox [link] [comments]
I'm guessing it's the rollout of Runes/BRC-20 shit coins? I can't stand that stuff. It's the worst of both worlds, it adds nothing to the native demand of actual bitcoin yet places the burden on the network of higher feeds and higher data requirements for nodes. Higher fees are not a good thing, the network is currently sufficiently secure and not under threat. It's unnecessary. Arbitrarily increasing the cost to transact to support competing coins or unrelated NFTs is just nuts. You can't even affordably transact on lightning with these fees, simply loading and unloading a non-custodial wallet is unaffordable. https://preview.redd.it/qw16cc7lojvc1.jpg?width=1201&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3074b1f03b8f8ace00ee0a7ac9ca168a2f962e8e submitted by /u/_reddit__referee_ [link] [comments]
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So sure the price of btc is way up high but the "difficulty" and cost of electricity are also at all time highs. I had read somewhere that unless you can get electricity far under the going rate in the United States, It's not worth it to mine in the United States. With that said if the block award is cut in half, how many other places will become unviable for miners? Couldn't this cause a lot of miners to quit? the difficulty goes down when the hash rate crashes right? Doesn't the chain need a certain hash rate to not fall behind on ledgering transactions? submitted by /u/Dosmastrify1 [link] [comments]
So… I think that many of us would agree that the bull run has started, right? 🤔 While I believe that the bull run has started, I also believe that many of the investors who participated in the last cycle have not returned to the crypto market yet. Furthermore, I doubt that many new investors have entered the market. If you don’t believe me, then please see the following link. It shows the Google Trends for “Cryptocurrency,” “Bitcoin,” and “Ethereum” for the United States over the last 5 years. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/TIMESERIES/1713516600?hl=en-US&tz=300&date=today+5-y&geo=US&hl=en&q=%2Fm%2F0vpj4_b,%2Fm%2F05p0rrx,%2Fm%2F0108bn2x&sni=3 As you can see, the level of interest in Bitcoin has increased quite a lot over the last 6 months, but the levels of interest in Ethereum and cryptocurrency in general has remained pretty flat. I assume that the growing interest in Bitcoin is due to the approval of the Spot Bitcoin ETFs, and the increase in the price of Bitcoin is probably due to institutional investors, not retail investors (like us). Also, I encourage you to find May 11, 2020 on the Google Trends chart. This was the date of the last Bitcoin Halving. As you can see, very little happened immediately following this date, and the price of BTC was fairly stagnant, too. (You can check the historical price of BTC on CoinMarketCap.) In November 2020 (6 months later), however, the level of interest in BTC as well as the price of BTC really started to move upward. In another 3 months, the levels of interest in Ethereum and cryptocurrency in general began to pick up, too. In summary… Manage your expectations. History tells us that prices probably won’t soar on the day of the Bitcoin Halving. The Halving is a catalyst for future price appreciation, and the altcoins move after BTC. What do you think guys? submitted by /u/mujohnt [link] [comments]
EXPERIMENT - Tracking 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Three - Up +42% Find the full blog post with all the tables and graphs here. The 2024 Top Ten Experiment features BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, DOGE, and DOT. SNAPSHOTS ALWAYS TAKEN ON FIRST OF THE MONTH (data below reflects 1 APRIL Snapshot). tl;dr What's this all about? I purchased $100 of each of Top 10 Cryptos in Jan. 2018, haven't sold or traded, reporting monthly for over 6 years for your reading pleasure. Did the same in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Learn more about the history and rules of the Experiments (including why I would include stablecoins) here. Learn more about the features in the 2024 Top Ten Experiment here. MARCH Highlights: SOL performs best in March. DOGE claims Q1 lead. XRP is still in last place The 2024 Top Ten portfolio is +42% so far this year compared to the S&P's +10%. DCA'ing once a year into Top Ten Cryptos for the last 7 years has produced better returns than if you'd done the same with the S&P 500 over the same time period (+256% vs S&P500's +52% - see below for details). Repeating last year's friendly competition between Top Ten Portfolio and total market cap token AMKT. Up +58%, The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT) is out to an early lead. Month Three – Up +42% https://preview.redd.it/24o9bpyfdgvc1.png?width=689&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d1f388afdc868a3b21992d72b67a37d4e9b2698 The 2024 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolio is BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, DOGE, DOT. March highlights for the 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: Most cryptos have a green month, SOL performs best in March DOGE claims Q1 lead March Ranking and Dropouts Here’s a look at the movement in the ranks three months into the 2024 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment: https://preview.redd.it/3lkdes6hdgvc1.png?width=348&format=png&auto=webp&s=57398a3bdc6b7c0c49b7ffdb0c1bcb5d4a0f0ff4 Fairly steady so far in 2024, with only DOT dropping out of the Top Ten. March Winners and Losers March Winners – SOL performed the best, +52% in March. DOGE came in second at +46% this month. March Losers – ADA underperformed this month, falling -17% in March. Q1 Update: 90% of cryptos in green, DOGE takes a commanding lead. Every Top Ten crypto but one is in positive territory so far this year: XRP is the exception, down -4% so far in 2024. DOGE, up +124% already in 2024, has taken a commanding lead. BNB is the next best performing (+86%) followed by SOL (+77%). The initial $100 invested in first place DOGE three months ago is worth $224 today. Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2024 https://preview.redd.it/ru898dfjdgvc1.png?width=333&format=png&auto=webp&s=13447939383fc8819de3f2761cc27d00aa691472 The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio gained $213 in March. The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2024 is now worth $1,420. Here’s a visual summary of the progress so far: https://preview.redd.it/6hyatkwkdgvc1.png?width=169&format=png&auto=webp&s=1267fe0fa19fb61ffd8214a9955dbc6ff5bea6bf 2024 Top Ten Portfolio vs. The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT) The first Top Ten Crypto Experiment was started on 1 January 2018 in an attempt to capture the gains of the entire market, similar to the “lazy” approach of the Bogleheads in traditional markets. Much has changed over the last six years, including the introduction of index products designed to capture the entire crypto market (instead of manually buying coins and tokens like I do for my Experiments). Like last year, I’m running a friendly competition between The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio and The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT). AMKT is an ERC-20 token that represents a cap weighted index of 15 Cryptocurrencies (minus stablecoins) backed 1:1 by the underlying assets represented within the index and completely onchain. Similar to the Boglehead Community, a Do Nothing Club has emerged encouraging a long-term “lazy” crypto investing approach. Since the index represents approximately 95% of the value within crypto, AMKT is an excellent proxy for the entire cryptocurrency market – exactly what my Top Ten Portfolios have been trying to recreate from the start. To mirror traditional index fund products, AMKT is also currently providing a 5% APR match, essentially creating its own dividend. Here’s the question I’ll be tracking this year: would I have been better off with $1,000 of AMKT instead of going through the effort of creating a homemade $1,000 Top Ten Index Fund? On 1 January 2024, $1000 was equal to 7.2 AMKT. Three months into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: https://preview.redd.it/krvg2e5mdgvc1.png?width=354&format=png&auto=webp&s=f291506d677cb77f96704627e6c3111508af1d9b March Performances: The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +18% AMKT: +8%. The March monthly victory goes to: The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio Overall since January 1st, 2024: The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +42% AMKT: +58% Overall lead: The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT) For the more visual, here’s the table I’ll be using to track the friendly Top Ten vs. AMKT competition this year: https://preview.redd.it/2ihwbd3odgvc1.png?width=777&format=png&auto=webp&s=006fdb0775c08f85057a97924d3da61ea77e6993 Combining the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Crypto Portfolios So, where do we stand if we combine seven years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments? 2018 Top Ten Experiment: up +28% (total value $1,282) 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +549% (total value $6,492) 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +822% (total value $9,222) (best performing portfolio) 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +250% (total value $3,500) 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -32% (total value $678) (worst performing portfolio) 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +129% (total value $2,293) 2024 Top Ten Experiment: down +42% (total value $1,420) Taking the seven portfolios together: After a $7,000 total investment in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $24,887. That’s up +256% on the combined portfolios. The peak for the combined Top Ten Index Fund Experiment Portfolios was November 2021’s all time high of +533%. Here’s the combined monthly ROI since I started tracking the metric in January 2020 for those who do better with visuals: https://preview.redd.it/2posp1gpdgvc1.png?width=591&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f8773415338b80284865282df853694b8d6c275 In summary: That's a +256% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for seven straight years. Comparison to S&P 500 I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of my Experiment to have a comparison point to traditional markets. The S&P 500 is up +10% so far in 2024, so the initial $1k investment into crypto on New Year’s Day would be worth $1,100 had it been redirected to the S&P. Not a bad start to the year. Taking the same invest-$1,000-on-January-1st-of-each-year approach with the S&P 500 that I’ve been documenting through the Top Ten Crypto Experiments, the yields are the following: $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018 = $1,960 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $2,090 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,620 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,400 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $1,100 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,370 today $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2024 = $1,100 today Taken together, the results for a similar approach with the S&P: https://preview.redd.it/jsvlxumrdgvc1.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a6006c810672fcbb0ce66781a594f6861b108b1 After seven $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 my portfolio would be worth $10,640. That is up +52% since January 2018 compared to a +256% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios. The visual below shows a comparison on ROI between a Top Ten Crypto approach and the S&P as per the rules of the Top Ten Experiments: https://preview.redd.it/ic3b16wsdgvc1.png?width=583&format=png&auto=webp&s=d2542c9cd6eeaa15fe6fb6d0bdb391e3ad1c87fa Conclusion: To the long time followers of the Top Ten Experiments, thank you for sticking around so long. For those just getting into crypto, I hope these reports will help prepare you for the highs and lows that await on your crypto adventures. Buckle up, go with the flow, think long term, and truly don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. Most importantly, try to enjoy the ride. A reporting note: I'll focus on 2024 Top Ten Portfolio reports + one other portfolio on a rotating basis this year, so expect two reports from me per month. March’s extended report is on the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio, which you can access here. You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten, 2019 Top Ten, 2020 Top Ten, 2022 Top Ten, and 2023 Top Ten reports as well. submitted by /u/Joe-M-4 [link] [comments]
I know 100% of you reading the title will disagree. That's OK. I'm not saying Memecoins are good though. All I'm saying is that memcoins, as a phenomenon, are an improvement of what crypto used to be before 2022. There have always been shitcoins. In 2015-2022, the way I remember it, every coin was supposed to have "utility." It was supposed to "revolutionize the world of finance" or "solve global problems through the blockchain" etc. Remember? For example, an energy sector shitcoin would say something like this: "Global energy sector is worth $1.5 trillion, projected to grow to $3.2 trillion by 2040. We are going to disrupt this $1.5 trillion sector with blockchain technology!" You'll probably also remember that 99% of these projects were a bunch of vaporware and buzzwords. Then, if you're honest with yourself, you will admit that WE KNEW they were vaporware and buzzwords but willingly played this game, pretending there was actual utility to the shitcoin we held and that it was going to disrupt the world of [insert random business sphere]. What made us play along with this masquerade is "number go up." When numbers do go up, the buzzwords suddenly start to make sense somehow. If other are buying, then it must be coming true! When numbers turn red, we called that alt a "shitcoin with no actual utility" and moved onto the next big thing set to disrupt something else. Essentially, gamblers gambled on what they believed others would be buying. That's it. The abolute worst of this model was the poor no-coiner mf's falling for the buzzwords and aping into vaporware at the top of godcandles. Their disappointment was immeasurable. Now enter memecoins. Dog or cat or a cartoon character. That's it. No buzzwords this time. No promise of utility. It does nothing. It's literally just an image of a dog/cat/goose with a bucket/hat/bag. The teams and insiders then pump their own memecoins to suck in the retail. Just as they did with the "utility" shitcoins. And then they exit, and the game resets. There are winners and there are losers, as always. With memecoins, nothing changed: gamblers still gamble on what they believe others will be buying. But this time, there is no promise to disrupt the insurance sector through the blockchain technology or to solve the global warming by tokenizing your dog's farts. We have to admit, the dominant usecase for crypto is still a promise of getting rich. There are other usecases, but they don't come close to this one. What changed with memecoins is that the crypto market has become more honest about it and more self-aware about its gambling addiction. Is it a problem? Yes! But the real problem that plagues crypto isn't monkey jpegs or useless memecoins. The real problems is that 99% of crypto users are regarded gamblers. Crypto is permissionless, so it's no surprise that it caters to its target audience's cravings Sooner or later, a prolonged bear market will cleanse the crypto space of memecoins once again. But rest assured, new ways to gamble will emerge. Perhaps even more useless and ridiculous than the current memecoins. And rest assured, I will be there alongside y'all, gambling on that absolute abomination that the market will come up with next! submitted by /u/inevitable_username [link] [comments]
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/18/tech/labhost-cybercrime-phishing-arrests/index.html Damn it has been awhile since I've read an article that actually portrays law enforcement ina good light,Hopefully they can use all the info they've gained and put it to work to actually clean up the space a bit. I don't mind my tax dollars being spent on this as compared to the usual bullsh**....A lot of users of this particular business venture are gonna be in for a rude awakening when the feds come knocking on their doors!!!!! submitted by /u/BrianS911 [link] [comments]
All the previous years dates and history 1st Bitcoin halving date — November 28, 2012 — Reward down: 50 BTC to 25 BTC 2nd Bitcoin halving date — July 9, 2016 — Reward down: 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC 3rd Bitcoin halving date — May 11, 2020 — Reward down: 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC 4th Bitcoin halving date — April 20, 2024 — Reward down: 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC Pretty dope if you think about it. Hope things stay lit in the markets and the price keeps going up like smoke....but if not its also okay more dip means more chips in the pot... submitted by /u/Fedshmoker [link] [comments]
Hey r/Cryptocurrency, we’re giving away 0.5 Bitcoin to one lucky winner to celebrate the upcoming halving. All you need to do is be the FIRST person to correctly guess what the exact USD value of Bitcoin to the nearest dollar, as reflected on Kraken, will be at 04:00 PM UTC on April 20, 2024. https://i.redd.it/ou36bfijc1vc1.gif Participants must have a Kraken account verified to at least the intermediate level. One submission only per account. Read the full contest rules here: https://www.kraken.com/btchalving2024redditterms Submit your official answer here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-sa1HHUbP_HxtFyW_JmDdpo7JIwZSBP5VjvbOz_7VNMt18w/viewform?usp=sf_link Don’t forget to comment below with your predictions. First across the line takes it all! *Geo restrictions apply submitted by /u/krakenexchange [link] [comments]
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The Mystics home court's capacity taps out at 4,200, while Capital One Arena — home to the Wizards, Capitals, and Georgetown Hoya's Men's Basketball — can fit nearly five times that crowd at some 20,000 spectators. submitted by /u/kundu123 [link] [comments]