UKH

We've not had a BTC thread for a while. It's recovering and has strengthened significantly in the last month. Anyone still in?

I'd sooner bet my life savings on Scottish Winter Conditions.

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com

I was reading a thread from 2017 earlier today where the great and the good of UKC were pronouncing the death of BTC...

I must have missed your post when bitcoin crashed to $19k.

I'm not a football head, but I believe it was Churchill who said 'They only sing when they win'.

Or Kinder Downfall.

Whilst I'm here, is it in?

BTC has zero inherent value.

But many things with negligible inherent value can be traded for a lot of money because they are finite in quantity and people believe that if they buy them, they can sell them on for more to the next person.

It's known as the greater fool theory.

And if you want to bet that there are still enough greater fools out there to pump its price higher and that you can get out before the house of cards falls down then go for it. But remember that you're doing little more than walking up to a Roulette table and putting your money on black.

You obviously don't understand the underlying tech so I understand your caution. But you don't seem to understand money that well either. A £20 note costs a few pence to make....

How's them pictures of monkeys doing?

Its a very slow roulette table, at that.

Some may gasp that its doubled in price in a year or so. After a series of exciting falls. People who bought in at $45,$50,$60,$70K are still underwater. People who thought they had lost a figure that would buy a nice house, or more, will be glad that the price has picked up and they can bail out. Perhaps they might even walk away richer. But there will be relentless selling pressure, as people try to recoup their losses.

If you'd got in at $600, not that I'm bitter or 'owt, you'd be laughing

You could have bought Arm shares and doubled your money in 2 months. But you wouldn't have had all that joy from massive drops. Or being associated with all sorts of interesting criminals. Now, if only they could reduce the green house gas emissions, so that the energy was used doing something useful, that would be handy.

AI worth a punt before it crashes?

I assume that means you do understand the underlying tech, and are OK with the astronomical energy use and associated climate impact?

This is your ignorance writ large. BTC is not an NFT. 🤣

Its all about quantum, these days. Do keep up.

No only will it solve complex problems, the like of which we have never been able to solve, it can really mess with cryptography. Quantum safe cryptographic algorithms are based on being more complex than can be cracked quickly, in the near future. Now, if someone came along, and increased the number of qbits, dramatically, things would get interesting. Science has an awkward habit of great leaps forward.

All crypto currencies would be under attack. All internet commerce, that uses TLS would fail as well. Not to mention the cloud platforms they are hosted on. But failing currencies would be the funniest.

Thats all nonsense, I hear you cry. You cant buy quantum computers at Curry's! Except, you can rent them on Amazon or Google cloud, today. The ones that are in private or government labs are more powerful.

Or being associated with all sorts of interesting criminals

You're going to hate finding out the means of exchange in which most criminals conduct their business.

Indeed. The other funny thing, about untraceable crypto, is it isnt untraceable. Its all there in the ledger. For everyone to see forever. Where as this bundle of notes and gold bars, I have under my bed is much harder to trace.

Lets hope the tax man, in multiple jurisdictions, doesnt take his share, of those hard earned crypto gains.

I'm not interested in traceability. Unlike your gold bars and piles of cash my cold wallet fits in my shirt pocket.

meh, i'm more concerned about big data's exponential carbon footprint..

You seem to be trying very hard to encourage people to invest in bitcoin. Rather than engaging in an enquiring discussion.

Is this in a bid to boost the value of your bitcoin? Or are you merely an innocent bystander, just trying to convince yourself to invest?

You've described the complete collapse of the global financial system and all secure communications. The price of BTC will really be the last of our worries. 

Ignorance, yeah, sure. Of course I didn't know the difference between one valueless, ecological crime wave and the next and wasn't just pointing out an example of one of the countless similar assets that turned out to be exactly as vacuous.

Not at all. I've merely asked who is 'in'.

Sadly this question has drawn the ignorant en masse. They've brough the same tired tropes that were being aired in 2017 (if not before) on the thread below. That thread  contains some great detail on the technology.

I note fact some of the same people on this thread were making the samearguments  7 years ago. What a 'bubble'! 🤣

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611

P.S. I already said what I need to on this:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/crypto_trading_real_returns-765...

Did me ok. Way better than the dipshits who told me to buy crypto 😉

I understand the underlying tech, which has absolutely no correlation with its value.

I am curious.

Do you see it as a money alternative or just pure investment?

Not sure what all the BTC hate is about, I must have missed something. A lot of people got caught up in the hype and sunk their lives into it, which is tragic, but it's just like any other investment and if you sink your life's savings into one thing and expect it to propel you into wealth then it's going to end badly for you at some point whatever you invest in.

It's not exactly rare for it to be part of people's long term investment portfolios now. It's high risk and volatile in the short term, but that's short term investing for you. If you buy it when it's low and hold onto it then it's as unlikely as any other investment to be worth less than you paid for it in 20 years and it might be worth a hell of a lot more. If you're going to sell when it crashes, then long term investing isn't for you. Time will tell. No investments are safe, buy low, don't sell during a crash, spread your investments wide and include bitcoin as part of your portfolio - this doesn't seem so insane of a strategy to warrant the attitude to bitcoin on this thread but then maybe I missed something.

Right, now I just need some money to invest...I hear henwardian might be a bit skeptical about things without inherrant value and I think I can help...DM on the way 🫡

Both. Currency traders make money on a similar basis. But i wouldn't recommend you invest in it.

Then you don't understand the underlying tech.

It cant work as both though. If you are buying into it on the basis its going to increase in value thats going to put you off using it. I would be nuts to use that coin today if it is increasing by 10% a day.

No they dont. They make their money by buying one currency and selling another. Its more a bug in the system than just holding it and hoping.

Or maybe they do. I mean I can fork bitcoin and create MonCoin and it will be worth bugger all unless I trick some idiots into buying into it.

So the tech clearly isnt the key factor here.

You don't need to fork BTC to create your own crypto currency.  With your understanding of how BTC works I guess you reckon you could buy some canvas and oil paints and your art will rival DaVinci prices. 😉

Yes I know but I was keeping it simple for you. Now why wont it be worth the same?

If I was going for dodgy art I would have gone for nfts and taken advantage of the crypto crowd.

Although in fairness it does look like the really expensive ones were just money laundering so not all of them are idiots.

The point is precisely that it is *not* like any other investment.

Except when it is. As UKC's resident Bitcoin evangelist you will of course be familiar with Ordinal Inscriptions.

I’m with you, there is a lot of misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is here. What Snowden said : “Unpopular but true: Bitcoin is the most significant monetary advance since the creation of coinage. If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.”

Ordinal Inscriptions are not Bitcoin. I'm not sure if you're willfully trying to mislead.

NFTs are an arrangement where you get to hold the wedding certificate but everyone gets to shag your betrothed.

Funge me a bitcoin then

Nobody was arguing with "significant". Trump's presidency was "significant"....

The instrument that replaces fiat currency, if it is a cryptocurrency, 100% absolutely definitely will not be the one we know now as bitcoin. It just won't. It'll be something else. So there's only one way today's holdings go.

It's the intersection of finance and tech. Tech is full of profitless innovation and bubbles. But sometimes innovation wins through. 20 years ago who'd have foreseen a B&B company with no accommodation to it's name, taxi companies with no vehicles, a tunnelling company for cars, an online bookseller selling... everything? Plenty of innovative companies have folded in that time but good ideas survive. BTC is now about 15 years old and despite a lot of pressure continues to survive and thrive.

Well done if you have made a bob or two.  I was looking when it was bumping along below £20k at then end of 2022?  Was waiting for £10k, which didn't come, so...

It's great you think YOU can tell people what currency they should use but that's probably your biggest blindspot; if people trust BTC and want to use it for their transactions or as a store for their wealth, you'll be hard pressed to tell them not to....but knock yourself out.

They are NFTs inscribed on the Bitcoin Blockchain. As your immediate reaction to another poster connecting BTC and NFTs was to ridicule them, I am not so sure that you understand the cryptocurrency ecosystem as well as you profess, and certainly not well enough to assert that other posters "don't understand the tech".

Maybe they do understand the tech, well enough to not touch it with a bargepole.

You can’t eat gold bars.

We're advising our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns.

Read this bit of your sentence again. Multiple times if needed. It's an NFT, not bitcoin. I agree with you here.

If you don't understand the technical difference between Bitcoin and an NFT on the Bitcoin blockchain, you'll continue to froth.

I would say I understand the underlying tech.

I also understand the principles of quantum computing, and I can read the roadmaps of various organisations active in the area, and I can evaluate their actual progress in terms of qbits and quantum error correction.

I also know what that eventually means for classical cryptography based currencies.  I also recognise the risk that advances in mathematical theory pose to them.  These are risks unique to cryptographic based currencies.

I'm not sure what that means. My credit card fits into my pocket and weights almost nothing.

Traceability is everything to crypto folk. That shoudl really be anonymous, but accountable. It s freedom from the man!. Except it really isn't. As many dealers, bent cops and pedo's have found out.

Bitcoin is fungible. NFTs are non-fungible. Such a fundamental and essential difference I really I can't see how you can conflate them.

You are right that I don't know much about Ordinal Inscriptions. These are Non-fungible within the blockchain inscription but are in effect an NFT.

Of course it does. But you were talking about your gold bars and coins so why the pivot?

Interesting - and if true, surely a good thing? Can you link to a story where Bitcoin has led to the catching of "many dealers, bent cops and pedo's"?

Fine, traceability is everything to crypto folk. Bitcoin folk generally aren’t “crypto” folk and they wouldn’t use Bitcoin if traceability was their chief concern. 
 

This thread is mostly people talking past each other.

Big data does have a large carbon footprint. The difference is that for big data people are constantly inventing new ways of making search more efficient. It may use more disk, but less compute. With crypto, the whole idea is that each iteration is harder to compute than the last.

With big data, there is often a cut off point. You don't need the daily sales details from 5 years ago. In many cases products will have changed and won't have much meaning projected forward. You can average them out and delete, or archive, the individual transaction details, leaving just the trends. With crypto the ledger has to stay for ever. You can check the accuracy, by going back and computing the hash of a value, then the hash of the hash and so on. Right up to the latest transaction.

Dealers

https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-drug-deals-silk-road-blockchain/

Bent cop

https://cointelegraph.com/news/australia-police-raid-bitcoin-hardware-walle...

Pedo

https://www.wired.com/story/tracers-in-the-dark-welcome-to-video-crypto-ano...

Fraudster ripping off criminals

https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/historic-3-point-36-b...

Ahh, but tumblers, they make it anonymous. Apart from the guy who ran one, being busted by the IRS, not really.

If the guy who runs a laundering site cant launder his own money ...

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-arrests-alleged-bitcoin-fog-money-lau...

You have to weigh the evil genius of a few criminal mathematicians against the combined weight of statistical analysis. Possibly hundreds of people wanting to make their name by bringing down the bad guys. Just look at Encrochat. Criminal mastermind, with smart software. But not as smart as the good guys. As hundreds of people will be contemplating form their small cells, for years to come.

"In more than 20 instances, they say, they could easily link those public accounts to transactions specifically on the Silk Road..."

Wow, it's like the Panama papers but involving far fewer people, far more minor crimes, and vastly smaller sums of money. Reckless not to use obfuscation tools.

Someone's been listening to BBC Sounds.... 😉

How exactly would you go about tracing Monero transactions and/or addresses?

If bitcoin was invented around 2009, and touted as anonymous, you can understand if the users believed the hype. Silk Road was taken down in 2013.

Wallets connected with it are still out there, with money in them. Criminals are still trying to access the wallets, but know they are being watched by lots of different people.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/04/silk-road-bitcoins-worth...

Any views on the pedos being busted via bitcoin? Minor crimes?

I think the key point is that bitcoin is not anonymous in many, many cases. Even to the crypto criminals. Yes there are other privacy coins, but this thread is about bitcoin, and that was one of its key features.

No Idea. Its not something I've considered.

These guys have, though.

https://ciphertrace.com/enhanced-monero-tracing/

It's been 3 years since ciphertrace claimed to be able to trace Monero. There's still zero evidence that they can. The 7 figure IRS bounty for tracing Monero remains unclaimed. That's free money if their claims are true.

I think we can safely say that no, ciphertrace cannot trace Monero.

I don't recall it was ever touted as anonymous. The transaction contains no personal information (so at best is pseudo anonymous), with a one time transaction-key. It was well known the blockchain recorded all transactions. 

What a weird and skin-crawling statement for you to make.

You are missing a trick here. A couple of the big fund managers have recently launched bitcoin style funds,not really for the faint hearted, but they are there in the market.vanguard which is a highly respected name in the market now have a spot bitcoin eft.however it’s only available in the USA.I think Blackstone and Fidelity are similar. The last review I looked at a few weeks ago was not very good in terms of financial performance.

You suggested that busting drug dealers, was minor crime. Does the same classification apply to pedos?

Normally you have robust arguments and its an interesting discussion. On this thread you've kinda skirted many of the salient points and commented on the periphery. A less charitable person might consider this a distraction technique.

So we've concluded that bitcoin is not anonymous. Now as a store of value...

End of 2017, the price was $20k. Yes it rose and rose, then fell & fell, only to rise again. Good for traders, less so as a store of value. Only last year it was $20k.

If you put $20k in to Microsoft in 2017, you'd have $99k now, Nvidia $306k verses $50k for bitcoin. An early bitcoin investor would be better off. Anyone else, less so. If you made money, that's great, If you're boasting about making money, that's somewhat (whats the word I'm looking for here?). A genuine discussion on the pro's and cons of bitcoin, seems to have been missed.

This thread seems to contradict that, along with supposed evidence. It does suggest the technique that could be used. Control the majority of nodes. Which will also work on bitcoin, and somewhat unrelated, Tor. Anecdotally, if you advertise your services to law enforcement and tax authorities, there should be some truth behind it. They are kinda litigious.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/z9j62d/the_irs_bounty_the_full_sto...

https://decrypt.co/43451/irs-1-million-contracts-data-firms-crack-monero

There have been a few hacks against monero, but it looks like opsec issues. This story suggests "heuristic analysis", which ties in with the statistical analysis, I mentioned above and the probabilistic determination mentioned in the decrypto link.

https://decrypt.co/43451/irs-1-million-contracts-data-firms-crack-monero

I'm still in Shani. Accumulated my current position over many years from as low as $3k to as much as $45k. All held in cold storage on a ledgerS in a safe at home. I have ridden the highs and lows but am happy to buy and hold so it hasn't worried me (helped by the fact that I haven't need the money)

I view it as manufactured digital scarcity via a very innovative and new tech, and as such a good thing to own. Will only be 21 million BTC. So to own a few of them in a world of billions of people is an attractive proposition to my investment portfolio. I also think the ability for the Algorithmic ledger system will adapt to the future of quantum computing power. It's not a one horse race in that regard IMO.

https://farside.co.uk/?p=997 is a good website to check approx daily inflows into all the etfs. Just got to ride out the Genesis sell off, think Greyscale is tailing off and wait for the FOMO to really hit with all the advertising the ETFs are doing stateside. A lot of noise about ETFs being granted in Asia and Europe. But for me the big thing would be if (big if) we start to see rotation out of Gold etfs into BTC. a $13.5t market into a $1t market....then it would really fly  

Not my best investment though.... my best investment? That happened very recently... A 2014 Gibson Les Paul R9 heavy relic. Once I got it home, I wrote to Gibson for more info and found out it was personally painted and aged by Tom Murphy (pre Murphy Lab) .... doubled in value as soon as that email hit my inbox (and I get to play with it)

Here is a link to Blackrocks eft

https://www.blackrock.com/us/financial-professionals/investment-strategies/...

Give your head a wobble. Shocking that you should ask that question, even rhetorically. If you're really struggling for an answer then post it again.

I can't "invest" in Bitcoin.

I do invest in global stock market indexes.

We can't deny that efficiency in tech and manufacturing is continuing to improve. So whilst there will be several more dips in our lifetime, on average it should go up as productivity improves.

This is what 40 years of S&P looks like. Image below.

The US has been disproportionally  successful, but that may change in the future, so a world index of some sorts should still return good average returns, and there's theory to back this up.

With crypto, it comes down to whether we think people may or may not want to buy it in the future. If you've made money form it, it's down to luck. You may believe you had a theory that it was likely to increase, but there was no way to know that. You can't predict crypto. And the crashes are so rapid you can't bail in time.

If you have spare money to gamble and don't mind loosing it then go for it.

If you are investing money that you expect to result in a long term return that you will rely on in the future, do not gamble on crypto, invest it instead.

As a side note, unless crypto prices stabilise such that people stop buying and hoarding them as a means of gambling, they will never be a useful currency for the masses. I couldn't handle buying a pizza with Bitcoin only to find that pizza had cost me £50k in a years time.

So I'm out for the above reasons.

Good to hear. It's been a wild few years for sure. It's interesting to hear from those with skin in the game given the thresds on UKC over the years. I note from the 2017 thread you were rather unconvinced by BTC. How come the change of heart?

Sweet! My 2002 custom-built Gordon Smith is my six-string "investment"...but its value is more auditory than monetary!

" I couldn't handle buying a pizza with Bitcoin only to find that pizza had cost me £50k in a years time."

If I bought a pizza for £10 today, and in a years time, another £10 in my wallet was worth £50k, I would be over the moon and not responding to threads on here

Hindsight is a wonderful thing when stating investments one should have made!

I'm not 'boasting' about anything. I had looked at a thread from 2017 (where I feel my BTC knowledge was at its peak and where we discuss significant technical detail of BTC).

On that thread & a couple of others from around that time a few people declared they were either invested in BTC or were going to do so. The general advice was that it was risky but put them in a cold wallet and wait 5-10 years. Hence THIS thread!

Read my OP. It was aimed squarely at UKC holders of BTC but has been derailed.

There were periods in the past when I felt more like some of the other responders to this thread, it seemed like endless scandals/hacks were going to derail the project. Now I feel more bullish. Wider acceptance, more regulatory involvement and more "investable" avenues to gain exposure. Also, 7 years of podcasts and reading on the subject have helped. I have had some bad times, decent SOL position was almost wiped out by the FTX implosion, although that's gone from pennies on the dollar back to about 60c . 

I am guilty of having diamond hands, I can tolerate high risk because I buy and hold (lucky to be financially secure) Crypto is only about 15% of my total investments.

Also - i like having some skin in the game because even if the chance is very small, I want to be involved if this puppy does get to 6 and possibly 7 figures. If it goes to zero , it will just be another terrible investment to add to my annoyingly long list lol

What if it was you last £10.

If using it as daily currency, rather than a gambling pot, the amount in your account may well go from zero to whatever you spend in a month.

If the price is fluctuating massively, then you have to check the price before you can spend.

It needs to be stable to be a currency.

That's similar to my philosophy. From my  purchase several years ago i just stuck it in a cold wallet and got on with life - missing most of the drama. Of course I knew it had crashed over that time but ignored the panic. I recently saw it had broken £40k, thus prompting my post.

Interesting times. Good luck. 👍 

Tulips always had a value, then prices went wild in the Dutch Tuilp boom, then they collapsed and then they picked up again. Its nothing new in terms of cycles. It was the same in the dot com bubble.

The Dutch Tulip bubble was a three year period primarily between 1634 to 1637.

UKC references to the Dutch Tulip bubble with respect to BTC, is now in its seventh year at least!

Neilh's references to the Dutch Tulip Mania with respect to BTC, now go back 7 years! 😉

"Forgive me if I continue to have a healthy degree of scepticism."

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611?v=1#x86721...

You've obviously forgotten that franipulation of the Grenotulous Effect won't deliver scuttering within any meaningful timescales. Are you 'avin a laugh?

Have you told McVities?

The Dot com bubble lasted around 3 years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

After 7 years of you throwing those examples around, I don't think bubble means what you think it means.

OK

You mentioned that drug dealers were minor criminals and that it was 'Reckless not to use obfuscation tools.'

Drug dealers and pedo's both harm people. I pointed out the logical flaw in your argument. I do appreciate the instances of faux outrage. Though, it hinders discussion. All of my posts have been reasoned and occasionally illustrated with examples. But, this isnt really a discussion. It all seems a bit, rah! rah! bitcoin bro's.

Fantastic to read some of the strong opinions in here. So many are presented as fact with very little in the way of evidence to support their claims. One thing I've observed (having been interested in this space for 4+ years now) is that once a person truly takes the time learn about and understand bitcoin, the transformation from sceptical to supportive is pretty rapid. 

'It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.' — Epictetus 

(I too once thought it boiled the oceans / was only used by criminals / was a tulip bubble / insert your favourite criticism here) 

Perhaps, as you truly understand bitcoin, you could explain their use to me. I can understand investing in them in the hope you can sell them (for money), but as a currency how are they useful to me? If I want to give someone money I can send it straight from my bank account to theirs, or even give them cash. If I want to buy something online I can use a credit card with the protection that affords me. How is bitcoin better?

Actually, you inferred that I'd believe pedos [sic] guilty of a minor crime.

"You suggested that busting drug dealers, was minor crime. Does the same classification apply to pedos?"

Drug dealing ranges from selling your mate a few leaves off a homegrown plant to 'Pablo Escobar' operations. I'm not sure there is a similarly benign end of the scale in the world of child sexual exploitation. 

You seem to have forgotten to provide any evidence yourself.

It's a global, immutable value exchange system that's free to access and not controlled by any single entity. Close to 2 billion people on the planet don't have the means or opportunity to own a bank account, so fairly and freely transferring value to them (even with cash) becomes very difficult indeed. Bitcoin fixes this (and many other things). 

https://endthefud.org/

Can you elaborate on this free to access a bit please? Transaction fees on bitcoin make what visa charges small businesses seem like the action of a charity.

Yes there are alternatives to the main blockchain but then you get to the point its no longer blockchain but instead a variety of systems which generally arent free bolted on top.

You might truly understand bitcoin, but apparently you didn't understand my question, how is bitcoin useful to me?

And how do 2 billion people without a bank account buy bitcoin?

Exactly the point.  It’s price is volatile. 

I was looking for your evidence not a gish gallop.

Thanks. You've answered the question. Drug dealers should use obfuscation to avoid the law, pedo's shouldn't.

Anyway, back on topic.

Do you think that with hindsight, you'd have been better investing in Nvidia. The company that makes the chips for mining rigs, and achieving a 15x return or bitcoin with its 2x return?

Edit to correct the maths.

Has bitcoin had any helpful impact for people who don't have bank accounts? I genuinely have no idea. Could say a subsidence farmer in Niger use bitcoin in any practical way? Is a not very smart phone on a 3G signal enough to potentially own and use bitcoin?

If someone doesn't have access to a bank account, what are the chances of them owning the computer hardware necessary to hold bitcoins?

(I know absolutely nothing about bitcoin, maybe there's no hardware needed)

Eh? You appear to be winning some kind of argument that is restricted to being purely inside your head.

The intersection of hindsight with your ignorance of BTC and arrogance regarding your claim that all your posts 'have been reasoned'; I would much rather have invested in Bitcoin than Nvidia in 2009.

Reading your contributions to this thread and the 2017 ones linked above, I can see 7 years of being wrong in your predictions is grinding your gears, but not as much as your bitterness at missing out on what for some who have taken time to understand BTC and played the long game, has been a good decision.

So long as you are willing to go via a third party an average mobile would do the job. You then effectively have a bank by any other name though.

It also doesnt seem overly popular compared to other options.

In Africa for example there is extensive use of mobile payment systems which have stepped into the gap left by banks.

China is not dissimilar with wechat and co.

Banks are regulated though

At some point you've got to put real money in, how does that happen?

In layman’s terms how are these things traded now? I had an account with a “broker” and bought and sold in the past but it was terrifying doing bacs to an unknown account and then waiting for hours to see if something was credited to your wallet (but no helpdesk or governance if it didn’t). Also the idea of having a that much money just in your device seemed a risk  

I know there are proper exchanges now but aren’t these a bit discredited after the biggest (plus several others) turned out to be scams? Have things loved on again, I guess the question is, how safe is it to buy and sell crypto without risking being ripped off or losing your wallet?

True. I was thinking more about it having that central organisation rather than being peer to peer use.

There are approved agents (corner shops and the like) where you can go in with cash and they top up your account. Or if your boss has a bank account they can transfer it to you.

So it doesnt completely remove traditional banking but means less people need it.

M-PESA is a good example. Its one of those fascinating cases where countries which were behind have leapfrogged in front due to new tech.

For a full exposition of the miracle of bitcoin - a wickedly expensive and environmentally catastrophic solution in search of a problem - I can do no better than refer you to Dilbert or more specifically, his boss. 

Buggered if I know. But it seems that bitcoin only works if you have online access to fiat currencies to use to buy it,  value it against and and sell it for. 

Thanks, I hadn't seen that before.

If a requirement to trace it is control of 51% of nodes, then any ability to trace transactions/addresses can only ever be theoretical. The cost of putting it into practice would be prohibitive, and it would kill the use case of Monero so you'd only be able to do it once.

(Apologies if I have misunderstood, have only skimmed the links on my lunch)

I use Coinbase and a leger cold wallet. But i bought years ago and have not traded for 5 years or so - just whacked it in a cold wallet. Things will have moved on.

Corrupt financial intermediaries are two a penny whatever the financial medium!

I am not far from agreeing with you. I think there are cryptocurrencies that have the potential to be useful as currencies. But BTC isn't one of them.

BTC transaction fees prohibit it from functioning as a currency. And the work arounds to achieve quick, cheap, scalable transactions require trust in a centralised entity.

Which leaves BTC's value largely reliant on its reputation as the cryptocurrency that everybody has heard of.

My expectation is that BTC's value ultimately trends towards zero, unless there is a fundamental rethink of its technology.

This is where I completely disagree. Putting your money on black is betting knowing that the odds are always against you. That is not necessarily the case with cryptocurrency trading (or trading in any other market).

As a currency for day to day transactions I agree, but as a store of wealth I might have to roll out the Yap stones defence:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180502-the-tiny-island-with-human-size...

You come over as someone trying to convince yourself of the merits of bitcoin.  You are right it's not crashed entirely since 2017.  Equally it has hardly been a good investment in that period (many other things have done better), nor a store of value  (it fluctuates too much).  So, if you think its got potential, great, but why the need to tell everyone else how ignorant they are of it?

I did think it would expire before now but it does seem to have stuck.  My current best guess is it will remain an "investment" in the way gold is - never dying but never really growing either, and very useful for criminals.

I'm not telling "everyone else how ignorant they are of it". I'm specifically telling those who don't know the difference between an NFT & BTC that they are ignorant (not in the pejorative sense). This really does expose their confusion.

How else in the fast paced world of IT can it be that the SAME arguments rolled out in 2017 (if not before), by the SAME people issuing the SAME  warning/cautions have STILL not come true 7 years later? SEVEN YEARS! In IT terms that is an age.

To link this back to those above confused by BTC and NFTs, this is why NFTs are worthless now but BTC has stuck around - despite some aggressive testing of its value.

As BTC enters its 15th year I'm still confident in it. But like any technology, it may well be crushed one day. In the world of IT, 15 years is an impressive run thus far.

Cash is useful to criminals. Property is useful to criminals. HSBC are useful to criminals. Not sure why you are picking out BTC?

There are a lot of voices arguing in my head, or so my doctor says. But I dont think he's real...

I'm working my way, logically for me, through various points. We've covered that its not anonymous. That as a value store, there are better options. That as a money making platform some got lucky, late arrivals less so. (A bit like a pyramid scheme.) Other methods made more money over the same period.

You don't support pedos'. Which is good.  But you do float the idea that drug dealers should use obfuscation tools avoid the law.

The reason I'm labouring the point is that for many, bitcoin has more than whiff of the illegal. Dealers, pedos, hackers and weapons sales seem to be a common theme in the public's eye. Not 'I did my shopping at Asda, using bitcoin'. There also seems to be a colourful world of grifters, shils and rip off merchants, due to the lack of regulation.

I thought the idea of being the casino, rather than a punter might appeal. You're still exposed, but with less risk and volatility but more profit. But if you're a true believer ...

You're desperate to make a point, and you're going back years and years to do so. If you read my posts from 7 yeas back on the link you posted, they are balanced. No doom and gloom, or millions for all. I also said that Ethereum looked interesting, due to smart contracts. I note that although there has been millions upon millions poured into it, there hasn't been widespread take up and certainly not down the to consumer level. Why is that?

Istr, I once joked that I didn't get into bitcoin when it was $600, as all you could by was drugs and guns. Living in Manchester I didn't need crypto for that.

The 14th year you would have not been very confident ....in reality very quiet with fingers crossed.

No it shows your inability to understand why people are drawing the comparison. 

It really isnt when you look at most of the trends in IT. A lot of stuff has flattened out now. Out of curiosity what is your It specialism?

Sorry but you have just randomly made another claim.

You keep going on about technology whilst ignoring that the value isnt in the technology but in the social value assigned to it. Hence why most cryptocurrencies fail.

I seem to have posted the same link twice. This is the one that mentions heuristics.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vastaamo-hacker-traced-via-u...

Who would control the 51%? For you and I the cost would be out of reach. For a government, perhaps not. Also there is a nice business case, that says 'those bitcoin we confiscated are now worth loads more. It could be self financing.' If you could put <some drug cartel> out of business, it may be a safe, cheap and easy option, compared to kicking in doors. Any devops engineer could spin up 100K nodes in an afternoon, using terraform.

I note that they are very vague in the Finnish report. If you tell people you can crack X they will start using Y. They also mention email addresses, so it could be an opsec issue.

I'll make this brief because I suspect nothing I say will change your mind and your latter point makes you sound either willingly ignorant or like a zealot.

I have a reasonable understanding of blockchain technology. It is useful for lots of things and is already involved in lots of worthwhile projects that have real uses. Bitcoin is not one of these. There are thousands of cyrptocurrencies and anyone can create a new one with a few minutes tapping away at a keyboard. However unless we are talking about stablecoins (a different conversation), there is nothing to underpin any kind of valuation beyond approx 0 for these digital tokens, including bitcoin.

Fiat currency is directly supported by a country and is representative of the material wealth, productivity and trade of that country (and in some cases, other countries too). Thus a £20 note has a value you can calculate (roughly) by looking at it as a fraction of the wealth represented by all £s or what you can buy in the UK using it. Obviously this is a massive simplification and the value of £s fluctuate based on international sentiment, quantitative easing, inflation etc. etc. But the underlying point is that a £ represents something.

If I'm going to be generous I could say a bitcoin represents a tiny fraction of an idea but the problem with that is that you don't need bitcoins to use the idea and profit from the idea.

Because it's a question of degree. Bitcoin is particularly and more useful than the other examples.

Also covered by me in the thread from 7 years ago.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611?v=1#x86683...

Better options does not mean BTC is a bad option. People who invested in Northern Rock will attest.

My god, you are weird obsessively pushing this theme.

We agree! You are indeed "labouring the point" and have been doing so for SEVEN years. The grifters, shills and lack of regulation seem to go far beyond BTC. From the Panama papers and Post Office/Horizon to the VIP PPE lane and LIBOR rigging, the corrupt are everywhere. 

I link back to relevant posts. It's kind of how it works. I reckon I'll be doing so in 2031. Do YOU think BTC will be around then? I do.

Oh dear. You've doubled down on the misunderstanding I called out. 

I disagree. I think most cryptocurrencies failed because they were shitcoins or centralised solutions giving the appearance of what BTC offered from a technical point of view. 

The €500 note is also particularly useful for criminals, which is why it’s being phased out. 

No. I just pointed out you didnt understand why you didnt get the comparison.

Lets leave aside the centralised solutions and go with the shitcoins. How do you mean give the appearance.

Did they or did they not have the same technology underpinning them? If not what do you see as the key technical difference.

This is another reason I am sceptical. If knowledge of arcane maths and technology is needed to evaluate whether something is worth having, I'm going to steer clear.

Anyway its peak value was about $69k. So it is still on a downward trend at £41k which is $51k in todays ball park.exchange rates.

The one I have in mind was Ruja Ignatova's OneCoin. As I recall it wasn't a distributed solution so one person could control the blockchain. 

<sigh>

Do you suppose the criminal associations, may have had a part to play in it taking SEVEN years for an ETF?

There were cannabis ETF's, pretty quickly after legalisation in the US. If bitcoin has been legal all along, it seems remiss.

I'm sure it will. Lots of people talking up the price, trying to get back to where they bought in.

Anyway, I look forward to a pic of your electric Ferrari. (You'll probably be complaining that you cant charge it, as all the earths power is going into mining ... )

OK, so as an investment, do you consider BTC to be under- or over-valued at present? What should it be worth? How much do you predict it will be worth in the future i.e. what sort of 'interest rate' would you expect to see from a BTC investment? Feel free to describe it in relative terms if you can't commit to absolute terms.  What rules should an investor use to decide whether or not to buy or sell?  For example, gold is normally seen as a 'safe haven' investment and people should invest in it when they believe stocks and the like are going to do badly.  What are the buying/selling 'rules' for BTC?

True.

This does not follow.

So it is trading at $50 odd dollars and still not reached its peak from 3 years ago . Not exactly robust. 

If you want investment advice go to a qualified financial advisor.

BTCs future value is hard to predict - hence I wouldn't advise anyone to invest in it as it's too volatile.

It's worth reading that thread from 2017. Back then, BTC was worth about £7500 - but it was a wild journey. Who'd have thought it'd still be here 7 years later? However, I stand by this comment I made:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611?v=1#x86712...

And yet for all your comments if you had put £20k into a simple vanguard 80 life strategy fund you would have easily past its previous peak price by now from the same period. 
 

Based on that alone bitcoin is pretty rubbish.  

My lifetime returns go:

Active stock investments > crypto trading > passive fund investments > cash investments 

The order is the same whether I consider absolute returns, or percentage returns.

I don't try to tell anyone that investing in passive funds is pretty rubbish.

Maybe you need to quit crypto

I'm happy for crypto to continue to be a very small component of a diverse strategy.

Let's look at your advice from 7 years ago - "Just looks like another bubble waiting to burst. Fine if you were an early stage buyer and have sold by now. But when everybody is talking about it,then it’s time to get out."

Maybe you need to quit giving advice about crypto?

So much to unpack here:

Firstly “immutable”? Unless you have a completely different definition of the word, bitcoin is about as far from immutable as you can get.

Secondly “value exchange system”? If I can’t use it to do the weekly shop, fill the car or pay the mortgage, it’s functionally useless to me.

Thirdly, “free to access”? Where is it free to access? Perhaps you could point somewhere that sells bitcoin without charging a transaction fee?

Fourthly, how is bitcoin superior to cash for those without bank accounts? Tell you what, next time you see a homeless person begging on the street ask them if they’d prefer cash or bitcoin, Can you guess their response?

I don't think you've thought this through because depending on the homeless person, unless you were going to offer them close to £40k in cash, I don't think the answer is that clear! 🤣

I don’t think you’ve thought this through. I was replying to the assertion that bitcoin is a “value exchange system” that’d be useful to those without bank accounts. It functionally fails on both counts.

Bitcoin has some way to catch up in Africa.

https://www.statista.com/topics/6770/mobile-money-in-africa/#topicOverview

How many homeless have you given bitcoin to?

How is that relevant? Your question presupposes that 'the homeless' are dim, unread, or foolish. There's every reason that a great many homeless people would accept a bitcoin - fully aware that it holds significant value.

How do you give them the bitcoin? What are the advantages over giving them cash or transferring money to a bank account? 

Because you seemed to be assuming they would accept bitcoin or find them useful

No, there isn't.  If you haven't got food, warmth or shelter, you really aren't going to be interested in something that you need a computer, "wallet" and internet to use.

I suppose this is the crux. Does it? When weighed against it's potential costs to the 99.99% of people who want nothing to do with it.

It certainly holds significant value for criminals and tax evaders and it holds significant value as a concept for the sorts of right wing libertarians who object to the very idea of government dipping into their pockets in the name of communal responsibly for each others welfare. 

If you don't find yourself in any of those categories I'd regard you as a credulous dupe propping up a digital Ponzi scheme, who couldn't care less about potential social costs.

You also a fan of off shore tax havens and secret bank accounts?

Let me stop you there.  That’s two posts now where you’re completely misreading what was posted.  The question was if someone in an unfortunate situation would rather accept cash or bitcoin.  “Bitcoin” being the currency, not a literal bitcoin.

Perhaps reread a few posts.

It didnt even have a blockchain at the end by all accounts.

However for all those which do have a POC the same as bitcoin. What makes their technology different and hence not as good as the forerunner? Or is the fact bitcoin is the forerunner the difference.

I don't think there's anything in that article to suggest a need to alter my thoughts on Monero traceability.

All of the information that was obtained with any certainty had nothing to do with Monero. The bitcoin addresses, the exchange accounts, the email addresses and the bank accounts all had nothing to do with any Monero transactions.

A bit of guesswork regarding transaction timings is a long way from something that would stand up in a court of law.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they're being vague to protect their capabilities, I doubt the article would have seen the light of day if that was the case. I think they're vague on details because they're making claims of being able to do something that they can't.

I don't understand how there can ever be a situation where the following are both true:

1) Monero continues to be worth using by criminals

2) It is cost effective for any entity to monitor Monero via a 51% attack 

Generate a QR code of their wallet address and the donor scans it with their phone.

People always are so polarized about everything and crypto makes them lose their minds like nothing else. If you think it's a scam, then leave it be - if you think it suits your risk appetite then go ahead and throw some money at it.

For me, I saw a video by Peter Van Valkenburgh in 2018 at a US Hearing of some sort. It was plastered all over the internet back then but in a few words it explained the concept of BTC to me - and I got hooked since then.

My pension and ISA are still invested in a Global Index - but at the same time, I do like some exposure to BTC/ETH. It's just the risk I'm willing to take - it's as simple as that.

Thank you (we'll put to one side the number of homeless with a bitcoin wallet). And the advantages over giving them cash or putting money in a bank account?

You don't know me but publicly cast me as a criminal, a tax evader, a right wing libertarians or a credulous dupe and fraudster?

I actually stated what attracted me to BTC back in 2017:  https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611?v=1#x86714...

Keep on attacking me personally if that's all you have got. 

I didn't say there was an advantage nor that I would. You're strawmanning here.

No but you are completely divorced from reality on the issue.

No. I assumed that homeless people might find a donation useful. Whether that donation is in an optimal form is not the point.

We can all contrive of scenarios where a certain means of exchange is optimal. Try donating that £10 in your wallet in an emergency to someone on the other side of the world. Use the right tool for the job, eh?

There's no strawmanning, it's a straightforward question, what are the advantages of bitcoin (as mentioned, I can see the point of investing in it)? There either are advantages over fiat currencies or there aren't, it's not a gotcha, I'd like to know, but all we get is some clown dance about the homeless and billions without bank accounts.

Oh the irony of you choosing £20k here. This is me back in 2017. I mean i get the year wrong, but hey...

"Only a fool would bet that Bitcoin will NOT break $20k in 2018. It could go MUCH higher over the next decade."

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again_again-676276?v=1#...

Hey, if you have questions feel free to start your own thread asking whatever questions you want. It's been largely disappointing to have seen this thread be derailed as it has.

My OP was a simple call to those who might have bought BTC. This in turn was spurred by my re-reading some of the 2017 BTC posts.

You're either very new here or very naive if you think a thread starter has any control over where a thread goes. Lack of answers noted though. 

Bitter?😉

Yes, pint please. 

So to whom did you send money in a distant emergency then? Which country, were they in the bottom two billion, how did you get their Bitcoin details? How did you find them and ascertain that they really needed your cash?

This thread is showing you to be woefully inept at basic reader comprehension.

Oooo! lets look what you said...

Not particularly closely. I'm more into cryptocurrency from a developer's perspective - as an implementation of blockchain technology. 

Could you explain how an interest "from a developer's perspective" necessitates you owning one?

As a clonecoin, i reckon on the Highlsnder principle; there can be only one. Cryptocurrencies are still feeling their way, but i reckon this will hold true.

This thread's seen a fair bit of you crowing about the accuracy of your 2017 predictions. This particular prediction missed the mark by a factor of around 9000.

Hmm... keep making fallacious claims and avoid my actual point; crypto is fundamentally unethical from all but a far right libertarian perspective. Is this an assessment you disagree with and if so perhaps you could engage with my point and show me where I'm wrong?

Most devs will know the importance of getting the Use Cases and UX right. This is best done by doing. I wanted to trade and store BTC. I wanted to see my transactions on the blockchain and also open a BTC up.

That point was made in context of BTC and BCH.

I made a prediction about BTC's value and durability that was way better than those of others - against a LOT of negativity on the thread - and was right. It is 7 years.You're fine to be critical as you've got no skin in the game - but feel free to make your own prediction. 

Go look at the Panama papers, PPE VIP channels, HSBCs activities or the reason €500 notes were contested. Criminals are all over regular finance and all asset classes including art. The finance world is getting in to BTC. You're naive to not know this.

Ultimately I've commited no crime so your frothing outrage and that of several others on this thread, seems to be fuelled by something else which I can't quite put my finger on...

Your blinkered, fanatical preaching about a shady product most people aren't @rsed about and wouldn't touch with a bargepole?

Considering the headline of this post is "Bitcoin at £41k" from you which in reality is 20% lower than its peak from 3 years ago I am more than comfortable with calling it out.

Not sure I've preached. Read the OP again. As for shady, go find out about the Panama papers ....not a Bitcoin in sight!

Which makes it even weirder that people like you have come on to my thread to froth.

Hook

Line

Sinker

Poundshop Nostradamus returns. Go read your insights from 7 years ago. 

As I confidently stated then, YOU have no idea about the value of BTC because you don't understand it. Seven years and you are no further forwards. I guess you'll be right one day.....but tech moves fast so it's not to be unexpected. 

I'm struck by the fact that all of these 'new investments' are only truly 'understood' by the favoured few. Those that are naysayers 'don't understand'. Those that 'get it' proselytise the unconverted. History tells us these end up as bubbles or pyramids. Some get rich, a lot get poorer and then they subside into oblivion. More people have lost money than have made it in Bitcoin.

Sometimes politicians try to ride the wave (Poundcoin anyone?) Statements that these are outside of Government control are clearly fallacious. They may be ignored for a while, but at the end of the day, Governments must control finances and will ban them/co-opt them if they become a threat.

Buy in if you like - but it's a gamble and nothing else.

Preaching about value when Bitcoin is 20% lower than its peak???

Af least do it when it’s higher , sustained and not viewed as roulette.

Devs giving a toss about UX? Thats a first for most of us. We leave that to the crayon munchers.

Although it doesnt work well with your announcements that people who disagree dont understand the technology and its that technology which makes the difference.

Which clearly is false given the same technology is used for failed coins. There has to be something else.

Is that an argument for or against? Of course the finance world sees a highly volatile thing and sees way to make money out of it.

If you want it purely as an investment it sort of works but it renders it crap as a currency.

The ability to trade currencies is more of a bug due to them being based on how countries are performing vs an intentional feature.

If we just avoid the noise around criminals/paying homeless people/pyramid scheme/climate change disaster for a second and look at the longterm logarithmic chart of BTC, 

https://charts.bitbo.io/stock-to-flow/ 

You can see specific repeated cycles of price action between halvings. After a halving there is a steep price climb (miners get paid half the BTC they were before so demand a higher price to do the work) which gradually tails off, then sells off (but never to the last halving price) and then slowly climbs again to the next halving. This has happened every time since inception. We are about to have the next halving event in April (21st I think). 

On balance, I would suggest a good chance we will see a repeat of the cycle, but possibly turbocharged now we have US retail money piling in (approx $5.5b net so far since mid Jan) . There are certainly headwinds. Confiscated coins from fraudulent activity will be sold by the authorities, plus bag holders who got in around the last all time high who will be glad to get out with their shirt just in tact. But, when looking at that chart linked above, that spans all the disasters that has befallen crypto such as Mt Gox/FTX etc... so those are in the chart.

I fully understand the opaqueness and unaccessibility of crypto to everyone other than those heavily involved. People are naturally nervous about anything new with a chequered history and especially around money. 

The above is just explaining one of the reasons why I have taken a risk with it. I think it adds to the thread hopefully. It may well be completely wrong and something else happens entirely and it drops like a stone for reasons not apparent to me yet. 

I understand the tech to a point. I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy - read the OP; I wanted to find anyone who had bought. I wouldn't advise people invest on the back of a UKC thread.

Gamble? Most of finance is. Heard of Black Wednesday, Negative Equity or the 2007 GFC?

FTR HSBC just posted record profits of £24,000,000,000 for 2023. That's over 70% higher than 2022. Those profits came from the higher interest payments of its struggling customers...

You keep rambling about tech moving fast but, ermm, it isnt.

This is a mature technology now which hasnt changed massively since its inception in 2008 (leaving aside the plasters stuck on top to try and make it usable as a currency).

Seven years ago it was crap as a currency with those companies which had trialled it (steam etc) dropping it since it was too volatile and difficult to manage to be useful.

I guess inbetween El Salvador has tried it as a currency but thats been a complete failure.

So it isnt moving fast.

You can speculate on it but its useless for what it was intended for.

Says the man who, when BTC was £6k, ranted about it being time to get out.... 🤣

I left dev 5 years ago but the 20 years previously the bad developers certainly did ignore UX.

People who don't understand the difference between NFTs and BTC clearly don't understand the tech.

I've no strong opinion either way.

Agreed  certainly since it has become so expensive to buy.

I don't understand this point.

You keep going on about the "tech" but fail to see that the tech isnt important here.The technology is irrelevant its the cultural value associated with it that is.

That the difference between BTC and NFTs.

Both are giving value to a particular block on a blockchain (depending on nft implementation). Its just the NFT says its worth something due to one reason and bitcoin for another.

Once you start speculating in something it becomes increasingly bad as a day to day commodity. Generally the speculation is more a bug than a feature and you still have something underlying it.

Bitcoin doesnt.

I agree that bitcoin as a currency is a very hard sell. For me its found its niche and has ensconced itself as an asset class of manufactured digital scarcity - digital gold. Personally I am hoping this idea gains traction. My very limited understanding of the concept is it could work well in this regard, but does need to keep up with quantum computing development to maintain security. This requires trust on my part which others may well see this as foolish and that's fair enough

"Both are giving value" - no they are not. Most NFTs are worthless as a store of value and are just taking up storage. No point us discussing this as you're rambling without understanding. 

I'm not giving financial advice so yeah, whatevs.

Uh huh. So tell me why exactly they are useless and why bitcoin isnt in terms of technology.

I am interested purely in the technical aspects and not the social and cultural since you keep announcing that there is something special in the tech.

What is it. Show me the code which makes this one magically worth something whilst something using an identical blockchain isnt.

Any reason why we cant just use the existing asset classes most of which at least have some underlying value and dont add a massive environmental impact by virtue of the design?

I guess I come from the opposite angle where I think it would be nice to have a currency along the lines of what bitcoin originally promised vs what it became.

There have been a lot of innocent and nieve people being  badly burnt by crypto. It’s frankly appalling we are still having this conversation 

Value is really only created when you sell it and the gains  are taxed and the net balance is sat in your  bank .Until then  its price is meaningless . 
 

Turn it around. If you're simply approaching this from the perspective of blockchain technology, why do you think that since BTC was created, NFTs have emerged, crashed and burned in a fraction of the time? Solution design and implementation carries worth - don't think of tech purely in terms of hardware.

In terms of worth, why are the Rai stones worth something and other large rocks not? Trust and prime-mover advantage play in BTCs favour.

I am not. Its you who is. Lets just quote you

"You obviously don't understand the underlying tech so I understand your caution"

So what is the relevant of the technology to the price of bitcoin? You seem to be admitting it isnt overly important now.

Hello 2007 and the Great Financial Crash. Hello Negative Equity. Hello 2023 Cost of Living Crisis. There are others....

I'm not giving financial advise so not sure why you're kind of mansplaining at me...

"Value is really only created when you sell it and the gains  are taxed and the net balance is sat in your  bank .Until then  its price is meaningless . "

I disagree with this....Lets use houses for an example. My house is worth x. So what? meaningless until I sell it? Well not if I am in negative equity. Or not if I want to borrow against it. It's value is important. If your house dropped 90% in value but still keeps you dry and warm at night, you would be completely unfazed? Unlikely. "A lot of innocent and naive people have been badly burned by house prices and interest rates. It's frankly appalling we are still having this conversation" 

I think banning crypto would be silly and an overreaction on the basis of bad actors. Regulate and prosecute the criminals instead. 
 

Tech covers the hardware and software. These  are applied to the business problem you're solving. BTC seems to have solved it well because the solution has everything you'd want from money - fungibility, trust, security, scarcity etc...

Its worth now is arguably down to critical mass, PMA etc... as I explained above, but that's the same with art, gem stones, trading stone or Hendrixes guitar - what are people willing to pay for it?

You seem to be trying to corner me on terminology - carry on if it makes you feel good. I'm not saying BTC is unique at a tech level but it was unique once.

Why do you want scarcity for money? 

Without a rising money supply resulting in mild inflation, your money is an investment asset to keep rather than spend.

If the money is too valuable an appreciating asset to exchange, we are reduced to barter for exchanging goods and services which cripples economic activity.

Money is a balance* between store of value and currency for exchanging goods and services.

*two sides of the same coin

Hyperinflation and deflation (money as an appreciating asset) are both undesirable.

To me an appreciating investment is fundamentally incompatible with the dual role of money as a store of value and currency for exchanging goods and services.

Maybe I've got it all wrong - do you have an example of a successful economy using an appreciating asset as a currency?

Rah! Rah! Crypto bro!

NFTs were hyped as the next big investment for the crypto community. Lots of people got in early, which is the thing to do with crypto. To find there wasn't a secondary market. Buy in a bubble and sell in a recession.

NFT's do have actual use cases.

A photographer or copyright holder can sign then tokenize their image. If someone says its a fake, they can look up the hash and prove via the signature it's an original. So when 'Trump says biggest crowd ever', you can be sure the photos are accurate.

With AI generated art, it would be very easy to NFT them by default. The problem here is that if you change one bit, the hash will fail. You can then pass it off as your own work. It relies on the honesty of the user who instructed the AI, which will never work. So then you need to use stenography, to embed the watermark in the picture, using dead space in the colour spectrum. Again, this can be modified by the user, so not ideal. However, when phones and cameras start to sign pics by default, this will become more useful for identifying AI images.

People can collect them, as a genuine copy. However, when I can simply right click and save as, to get an identical copy, there is little incentive for most people.

Considering I havent mentioned the hardware at all I am struggling to understand why you feel to announce this?

As for bitcoin being good as "money". I am not sure where to start with such an insane pronouncement. You could possibly argue for it as a store of value but it fails dramatically at the other use cases especially medium of exchange. Even the bitcoin fanatics kind of accept this with lightning and other bodge jobs to try and make it usable for this purpose.

Actually you didnt. You just made pronouncements which are often contradictory.

Incidently I love how you whine about "mansplaining" despite being the worse culprit for it.

No I am not. You have repeatedly argued people are not understanding  "the tech" whilst failing to understand the technology is pretty irrelevant to the speculation.

For example how does the tech play a part in the ETF?

Raises eyebrows..... 😀

I agree with most of this. Regarding your last question, it is risky for a nation not to have a sovereign currency and as you say an appreciating investment is fundamentally incompatible with the dual role of money as a store of value and currency for exchanging goods and services.

We've now moved on to what money *is*. I can't find the thread about MMT from 2019-ish where we discuss money at length but SeanKenny may well be along shortly to educate us, and hopefully deploy his David Graeber joke.

This thread is not about NFTs and I could never see why you'd buy them.

Discussing this with you on a forum is tedious. If you're as smart as you think you are you'll know that BTC was designed as a medium of exchange but has evolved over the past decade. Please start your own thread and take the NFT ranters with you.

This is getting quite comical. You start a thread about bitcoin and insist you don't want to talk about anything to do with bitcoin!

Yes I know that. However its you arguing its "solution has everything you'd want from money". So what is it? Is it useful as money which includes medium of exchange (arguably as the key requirement) or not?

Sorry, you must be new here. These threads often go off at tangents, occasionally related to the topic in hand, other times, not so much.

You posed the question. I answered it partly because it think, like Ethereum that its built on, there are some use cases for NFT's. Partly, to show what happens when you give the unwashed masses access to new toys.

Seriously, I believe the internet has gone down hill since the browser was invented.

Belive me I'm laughing at this that you posted yesterday: "You are right it's not crashed entirely since 2017."

You need to read my OP again, particularly the last sentence. 

Finally. Yes it has - and the effort to respond to so much noise is tedious.

Please go and join mondite and create an NFT thread. You're trying to recover but NFTs and BTC are not the same even if the do both use a blockchain.

Err, OK.  Why?

So you were looking for a series of posts saying "yes me" or "no I sold"?  Don't think you were really.

Feel free to stop... please...

That rash, I'm recovering from, is private and the cream will clear it up.

I was trying to add some signal to the noise. I appreciate that Ethereum is different from bitcoin. If you study the ancient scrolls from 2017, you'll see I spoketh of smart contracts.

Let me bring it back on topic.

I made loaddsamoney on bitcoin. Isn't it great! Is anyone else as great or are you all idiots?

If you scan the thread, you'll notice that you've got quite a few dislikes. Possibly not because your answers are wrong or right. More, that they are patronising and boorish. Which is a shame.

This could have been an interesting and wider ranging discussion on the pros and cons of various technologies. I think you want confirmation that though the price is about double what it was SEVEN years ago (we have to use caps for numbers these days), everything is still groovy.

I suspect they were looking for a bunch of people going "diamond hands", "hodl" and "to the moon".

Bit hopeful really.

I did use the phrase diamond hands in one of my posts - guilty as charged

Indeed i wasn't. I was looking for posts like Bjartur i Sumarhus':

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_41k-768338?v=1#x9884117

I see. A good  bit of mutual backslapping and "diamond hands", "hodl" and "to the moon". 

Got it.

You are projectIng. I think I've an idea of why you are so angry.

I'm pretty chuffed that my thoughts about BTC in 2017 held true.

As above, I happened across my 2017 BTC threads and was curious if anyone had jumped in around that time. I've certainly no interest in pump and dump which is why I've not mentioned BTC since 2017 - but keep the 'hodl' and 'to the moon' tropes coming.

Those 2017 threads cover some technical detail if you're interested. I'm really not phased by dislikes. 

Your words, not his in that link. I think this is a 'tell' as to why you're frothing.

Nah, just amused at your public insecurities and need to get adoration about being a tech-bro investing in crypto.

You'd have to spend the rest of your day converting it into cash, or buying them the gizmos they need to do that themselves, so they could use it!

You've done well. Got two hundred posts. Now can we have a thread about bald men arguing over a comb? Or how to have an argument in an empty room?

It's not a comb it's a tokigushi (apologies for not being bald).

I'm impressed with Shani's patience, especially with excitable idiot doomsters, given bit coin is just another higher risk investment with potential for significant gains.

On one sub topic I must remember to tell myself: it's important that the criminals, who escape prosecution whilst using more conventional investments, are at least operating in a regulated market.

Having been inspired to search for the first time since the pandemic, I thought this was a short readable view on  historical issues on regulators and criminality:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2021/09/28/designed-to-avoid-regulat...

If I could be arsed ((which I absolutely can’t) I’d tot up the many occasions you’ve accused various people of “frothing” on this thread.

I can only assume your life is wildly pedestrian if mild disagreement with disembodied randoms on the internet counts as “frothing”

Let me remind you of your very own *mild disagreement* where you posted that I must be a criminal, a tax evader, a right wing libertarian or a credulous dupe and fraudster.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_41k-768338?v=1#x9884430

Thanks for now trying to row-back though.

As I said earlier, your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired. I wrote “or a credulous dupe”. The “credulous dupe and fraudster” bit is pure invention on your part. 
 

You’ve misquoted me twice now but no need to apologise, I’ll just assume you got a bit overexcited.

You wrote "...credulous dupe propping up a digital Ponzi scheme"

Ponzi was a fraudster so it's not unreasonable to assume you were tagging me with the same. If you didn't meant to do so then I'm happy to apologise for my misunderstanding.

That means your own *mild disagreement* boils down to you libeling me as a criminal, a tax evader, a right wing libertarian or a credulous dupe propping up 'fraudulent activity'.

I think my lawyers still have case to look in to.

Yep, and I'll stand by it since when I asked if you'd like to justify the ethics of propping up bitcoin your response was "blah, blah, Panama papers and associated whataboutery" (please excuse the paraphrase as it's entirely accurate).

The state pension is basically a legalised Ponzi scheme. Not always an accusation of being a fraudster. Unless they take away state pension before I can claim it then I take it back 

No because there's no fraud or lies claiming your state pension results from investment returns.

"The pension payments made by the government for unfunded pensions are financed on an ongoing basis from National Insurance contributions and general taxation."

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformati...

Once they find a lawyer who accepts crypto you will be in trouble.

Stichtplate can relax. I have the same number of lawyers as i do NFTs.

This invites the 'where's the harm in that' comment but my understanding is that it requires huge amounts of energy to manufacture and maintain bit coin at a time when we should be trying to conserve resources. It's value literally derives from the cost of the energy wasted.

41 thousand?

Maybe do some research about how Pensions are funded by UK Gov and the National insurance  department etc. It is far from a ponzi scheme. Bit off topic.

There are plenty of other investments in industries that require vast use of energy and/or extensive damage to the environment that could be avoided at minimal cost (or even with cost savings) with modern alternatives, let alone others with those two features that we still need to keep global capitalism functioning. Why single out bit coin?

You guys really are a barrel of laughs.

But I'm sticking to it, it's a legalised Ponzi scheme. It relies on an increase in workers to fund an above inflation return.

But what we have is an aging population so it's going to fall over sooner or later.

We are promised a return, that well prepared younger workers are likely to not see if and when it becomes means tested. 

It relies on new members to pay those that got in before. And since it's above inflation, it needs to be a pyramid of some sorts.

It functions exactly like a ponzi scheme.

Don't believe me? Believe Martin Lewis instead

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2009/03/is-the-state-pension-a-ponzi-sch...

What examples are you thinking of? Generally if there is an alternative which uses less energy then companies will use it because, well, its cheaper. For example come up with an aluminium producing method which reduces the energy needs and unless you really take the mickey with your pricing the providers would be biting your hand off to switch.

It is unfortunately a cost benefit analysis but the damage is a byproduct.

Whereas Bitcoin is deliberately designed to ratchet up the energy used to "produce" them.

Firstly those industries (key word) have wider benefits.  Bitcoin is the only one that has using lots of energy as a deliberate feature.

Second, there are strong moves to try and move investment from energy intensive activity in other areas too.

I think Bitcoin energy demands will ultimately kill it. Unless they can change it.

Sooner or later, governments will put restrictions on energy limits per transactions, just like they put regulations on cars, bulbs vacuum cleaners etc.

This move will give lower energy usage coins like Ethereum a massive boost.

I'm sure it's not possible to prevent bitcoin being used in any country, but they can make it's use limited and that's all it needs to cause a swing.

As a store of wealth, how does BTC compare to the physical resources used to build and protect gold bars?

I also wonder how BTC energy use compares to social media use? The frivolous content on TikTok and YouTube etc... can't come cheap particularly with the addition of AI now grooming the data sets in the background.

Well on the truly awful side how about fuel extraction from oil shales or amazon deforestation for beef production or the fact that the Aral sea has almost gone for cotton production (that then in manufacture pollutes many developing countries waterways)..... all the way down to the fact we don't actually need most of our consumer goods to keep global capitalism. Waste and damage is everywhere in modern life and bad investment sits in all sorts of investment products from index trackers to pension funds.

I fully agree the energy consumption of bit coin is bad (over a hundred TWhrs a year), however, that will soon be overtaken by consumption of ChatGPT type AI. Then we can look at some of the environmentally disastrous places server farms are located for tax reasons. 

https://towardsdatascience.com/chatgpts-electricity-consumption-7873483feac...

Nonsense, the damage is known in those industries so it is a deliberate feature and that damage happens to make money for people invested just like bit coin manufacture.

"Strong moves" are strong words... the rich and powerful behind those industries have done remarkably well in pushing back, given the pointless damage has been known for decades. Trump is a fan and boosted such industries last time and Putin still does.

The energy consumption criticism, whilst valid always has a wiff of "he who casts the first stone..." There is no doubt it is energy intensive to the point that more and more miners are looking to build around hydro and thermal energy spots, maybe Greta would cause me to blush under interrogation, but a bunch of hobby climbers who drive and fly for their pastime and other holidays and probably do not direct their pension provider to solely invest in ESG funds, less so*. 

*Although as a group, I do think UKC community is pretty good when it comes to green issues (away from their hobby )

Others industries are bad, so bitcoin's fine. Cool.

No it isnt. In those industries its a bug unlike in bitcoin where its a feature.

Even the cryptokiddies somewhat acknowledge this with other coins going for POS etc. Although of course POS does pose certain issues for those claiming its all about decentralising and avoiding powerful entities calling the shots.

I have a sneaky suspicion that fans of bitcoin will also trend high on the use of social media.

Nope, my argument is since nearly everything involves bad things and many industries are much worse (in energy consumption and/or criminality) I do find it odd that some get so excited over bitcoin.

I'd love to see bitcoin replaced by a less energy intensive alternatives. Yet I have no control over any of these bad things other than highlighting information and voting.

Cutting down vast expanses of rainforest and digging up vast areas of permafrost and draining the Aral sea isn't a bug. It's deliberate features to make money that could be made elsewhere with less damage and lower cost.

Well it shouldn't really seem odd,  it's a thread about bitcoin.

Why do you want it replaced? 

Why can't you ever have an honest discussion?  Obviously the damage is known and I didn't suggest otherwise as you are fully aware because you aren't stupid.  The difference is the industries don't set out to use lots of energy, quite the opposite.  Bitcoin does just this.  That is the difference.

Again, why the bad faith?  It is obvious and well known polluting industries are resisting change and I didn't suggest otherwise, as you again know.  I said there are strong moves to reduce the energy used, which there are - insulating buildings is one obvious example among many.

And devs! 😉

Well aside from calling out honesty being pretty dishonest rhetoric..... I'll stick to the subject at hand.

Oil production from shales makes money on what is defacto energy production but at higher prices than nearly all other forms of energy production and with massive energy use and environmental damage as well.

Rating energy use in bit coin over deforestation for beef production I'd say is so far backwards it beggars belief in actual impact in a time of critcal global warming.

You used the phrase 'stong moves' .... you sound like a tory politician... they don't look so strong to me... wind and solar growth look more like economic drives with political pressures too often slowing growth. You now raise building insulation... so where exactly is this massive push right now for that?

Ethereum uses less than 1% of the energy of bitcoin I believe.

Why not? This is how wrongs are righted. But I didn't single it out the thread is about it!

Again, not something I or anyone else has here done.  If you don't want to be called dishonest, perhaps don't be dishonest.

For example https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/news/detail/?nId=1176

It doesn't really though does it. BTC is still about the hype. There's loads of Crypto's that have way better tech than BTC. BTC is so slow. It maxes out at around 7 transactions per second and the power requirements are astronomical!

VISA does around 1,700 transactions per second. Crypto's like XLM could handle VISAs load for a fraction of the money/power VISAs takes. 

Now they have switched to Proof of Stake possibly.

However this runs into the problem that it favours the bigger players which undermines the argument about decentralisation and so forth (of course this is also true of POW for popular options like bitcoin but thats another flaw in the general idea).

That's nice. What makes Ethereum more useful to me than fiat currencies and conventional banking?

No idea. I've told you everything I know about it.

It's odd that you should pick on fuel extraction because bit coin is literally demanding that activity and for no purpose other than to create its value. 

Once something is imbued with a value, that's what it's worth. Is a Banksy stencil art worth millions or is it a stencil, spraypaint and hype?

As an innovation, BTC was an attempt to wrest some control from powerful, self-serving financial organisations in response to the 2007/8 crash. It was a smart first move but yes, I'm sure there are now loads of technically better crypto coins around (as there were in 2017) - things move on and I've not even looked at crypto for at least 5 years (browsing my UKC thread history prompted this thread).

Fun facts Bitcoin is much more damaging to the climate than gold, slightly worse than eating beef but slightly better than just burning a load of gasoline.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18686-8

And so it gave the power to a bunch of powerful, self-serving cryto organisations which are even more opaque.

Yay.

Thats capitalism for you!

Stichtplate was already relaxed ta.

There is often contention about how energy consumption is factored in and what is ignored.

I find it hard to believe your figures include the energy demands of hosting gold miners in settlements, digging out the mines, the explosives, tools and heavy machinery (that also have to be made and transported), then transporting this material for extracting the precious metals, and once refined then shipping the gold around the world. After that you need to build secure storage facilities (more heavy machinery) and fund a standing security force of heavily armed people to protect that pile of gold daily....

What do you mean by 'powerful, self-serving crypto organisations'?

How do you conclude these 'powerful, self-serving crypto organisations' to be more opaque than those involved in the financial world revealed by the likes of the Panama papers?

If you read it it says what it does and doesn't include (it doesn't for example include the carbon cost of materials to build Bitcoin mining rigs so its a pretty low estimate in that regard).  Their methodology seemed pretty good to me (as is the fact it got published in nature). Eitherway I thought bitcoin actually came out pretty good, I was expecting somthing much more doom laden (other doom laden studies on bitcoin are available). It's not exactly a hotly contested secret that Bitcoin is shite for the environment but as I enjoyed a tasty stake at the weekend I'm not judging! I thought the comparison between oil was interesting though, the two being broadly equivalent it would seem. 

I haven't read it yet (i will do, but I'm busy at the moment). I did read up about BTC's energy use a couple of years ago and it was such a hotly contested issue - its comparison to VISA was a particular bone of contention. Thanks for the link.

Keeping (admittedly, pretty handsome) dogs is not very green, and if you put socks on you might be able to drop the heating a notch....

Nice one, and a beautiful dog! 👍

That paper looks about right and backs my argument. Multiply those numbers by the total value of each of the commodities and you get total carbon impact per commodity... a very different looking bar chart. Also if you separately included beef produced in deforestation areas or gasoline from shale oils their two bars (cf beef and gasoline) per unit price would maybe be double in size. I'd love to see a bar for cotton clothing based on cotton grown near the Aral with a fair cost assessment of the environmental damage in giving us cheap clothing.

In the end if we have a clear problem in our difficult times we need to firmly regulate, yet we fail in that time and time again on the commodities with the biggest climate change and environmental damage factors, let alone bit coin (which is equivalent to Belgium power consumption) where regulation would be more difficult.

Cheers almost choked on my tea laughing about such a 'stong move'. In the UK maybe a few thousand houses meet that standard, largely driven by entrepreneurs and individuals pushing against the political tide. Elsewhere in the EU where action was taken the strong moves happened ages ago.

So you didn't bother to open the link.    If you had, you would know that a) it was about Scotland not the UK, and b) what it was not about what has happened previously but future approaches.  It  references a Scottish government move to dramatically increase the insulation requirement of new buildings.

Well not really.  But if you do think so, then  you seem to be agreeing with me that serious efforts to reduce energy use are taking place in many sectors.

Are those giant ear cleaners in the bottle by the fireplace?

Visa must be much lower energy cost per unit but higher volume...

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/06/16/how-crypto-and-cbdcs-can-u...

There was a handy link to another blog on regulatory issues for crypto at the bottom of that blog.

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2021/12/09/blog120921-global-crypto-r...

I'm not sure your logic really works here, you could conversely take beef from grass pasture in England, or a differnt subset for oil extraction and get differnt numbers. The papers authors have taken an average, whitch is imperfect but probably the best comparison there is. Making up some new assumptions and applying them to the numbers is a bit dodgy.

I actually do a lot of work on the impact of mining and would say if you look at it from a more holistic view point regarding environmental damage rather just the lens of CO2 it would look different. If we could only have one investment I would actually choose bitcoin over gold, considering the nasty chemicals released straight into the environment that is unfortunately all to common in gold extraction. But I guess that's the point, should we have to choose? Bitcoin is very carbon intensive and, apart from an investment, pretty useless for society. I regularly argue that we should stop mining gold as its very damaging and has very few practical uses. I would do the same for bitcoin. Society needs to be trying to reduce carbon emissions, not inventing new and exciting ways to frankly rather frivolously waste energy, which essentially, a bit like gold, all bitcoin is.

I thought we were talking global on these matters (or we are fracked). I replied based on the UK (including Scotland) where there are about 30 million homes with about 1500 formally meeting those standards. I congratulate the Scottish and Welsh governments for trying much harder than the UK government but our EPC situation overall is still dire:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/energy...

I can't find current equivalent data for Scotland but the 61 EPC average often quoted was just lower than the UK average at that time.

You should see my ears

No heating required. Sharing the home with wife and two teenage daughters means a daily triple whammy of hair dryers/straigteners.  I’d actually just shut the window 🙄

Really it's not. I made the point  it's total impacts that matter for climate change, not cost per unit and total environmental damage (not factored into market values). Overall that bar chart for total impacts for each commodity would look very different.

Looking at specifics sub categories oil shale is a growing market worth around $3 billion annually and causes massive damage. Cattle production on deforestation areas in Brazil must be around $50billion (of a $150 million national  total), again without factoring in environmental costs to carbon budgets.

You didn't reply, you ignored what I wrote and just bashed irrelevantly on your keyboard.  You asked for an example of where moves to reduce energy are being made. Rather obviously, if energy use is already very small in an area they won't be where the focus.  The fact housing is currently inefficient is exactly why there is a focus on it.

It's not yet in legislation in a tiny country when we are facing a global crisis.

It takes at least two to "bash irrelevently on your keyboard" (not words I would use) in an online debate that moves to and fro.

I hope you didn't get splinters in your gums

I'm trying out meat alternatives so I can feel better about getting all preachy about climite change on the Internet. Think I'll go well done next time, it will make it easier to digest.

I agree that both the oil industry and beef farming (and lots of other industries) have significantly bigger CO2 emissions compared to Bitcoin. They are obviously much bigger industry sectors. This however does not stop the CO2 emissions from bitcoin from being really quite large and, unlike food and energy production, really quite unessacery.  I posted the graph as people were talking about investing in different sectors and it would appear if you invest in bitcoin you will generate the same CO2 footprint as if you invested the same cash in oil or beef and significantly less than gold.

I see the situation on beef  (and the related soy for beef) in a deforested amazon and on gasoline from oil shales as being  much more obviously unsustainable climate issues, much larger in per unit cost and much larger in overall carbon costs cf bitcoin. All should be better regulated in my view (bitcoin being the hardest to regulate) but unfortunately the world didn't act and do that. 

It's not a currency. It's gambling. It also has the potential to undermine the currencies of smaller vulnerable nation states. 

Anything else that did that would get you banned from responsible online platforms. 

Go forth and multiply somewhere else.

Gambling is legal.

How?

Why shouldn't I follow up on a 2017 thread which itself was a follow-up on a 2013 thread? 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611

So has it gone up since then? 

Do you understand how it works - really? The oddity is , you might, but noone actually cares what it's useful as all it really has value for is as a quick buck if you're lucky or devious

I don't know, i haven't looked. I don't really follow cryptocurrencies and haven't done a trade for years (possibly since around 2017)

Quick buck? Seven years is hardly quick and as Dread-i advised up above, "If you put $20k in to Microsoft in 2017, you'd have $99k now, Nvidia $306k verses $50k for bitcoin."

As I've put above, this post was prompted after looking through my UKC history and coming across a 2017 thread where user ablackett's opening post referenced a 2013 thread about bitcoin. I figured I'd ask the same question. Curiosity really is all it was. To say I'm surprised by the ensuing froth is an understatement. 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/bitcoin_again-673611?v=1#x86648...

I'm sure I have barely posted a single thing about bitcoin since then - it's possible but I really can't recall. 

I'm not sure why so many men are falling over themselves to come on to this thread and flounce around telling me how much they don't care. It's a very curious behaviour - but welcome to the list of angry cryptogammon.

Possibly only once, in 2021.

What is more scarce than a Silent Partner?: Bitcoin (BTC). 

I'd recommend "Bitcoin for Dummies" as a beginners route for those wanting to tie in to the sharp end. Fiat is for those still using their mother's washing line. 

Are you aware of how USD is currently the World's reserve currency and how it especially disadvantages other nations and its denial of service to those who do not comply? BTC offers the unbanked (most of the world's population) an opportunity to retain their own assets without being stolen (inflation and confiscation). To obtain a more informed understanding of BTC I'd recommend the book "Bitcoin for Dummies ".