[JayJuanGee]

(11-03-2016 05:39 PM)pants Wrote:  

Zcash, might be legit, but seems to be a lot of sceptisism on bitcoin talk.

Wouldn't be surprised if there is some inside trading. Just trying to pump the price up to generate more hype. the limited volume might make it possible.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.html?topic=1342065.600

Zcash has had quite a ride in the past few weeks to go from an opening price of about 1.2BTC per Zcash, and then to have a short period within a day or so of some folks trading Zcash for more than 2,000 BTC per Zcash, and currently, Zcash is trading for less than .3 BTC per coin. Wow!!!! Amazing pump and dump numbers.

[JayJuanGee]

(11-10-2016 10:07 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 05:39 PM)pants Wrote:  

Zcash, might be legit, but seems to be a lot of sceptisism on bitcoin talk.

Wouldn't be surprised if there is some inside trading. Just trying to pump the price up to generate more hype. the limited volume might make it possible.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.html?topic=1342065.600

Zcash has had quite a ride in the past few weeks to go from an opening price of about 1.2BTC per Zcash, and then to have a short period within a day or so of some folks trading Zcash for more than 2,000 BTC per Zcash, and currently, Zcash is trading for less than .3 BTC per coin. Wow!!!! Amazing pump and dump numbers.

I guess that I am making a bit of a cross post here, just in case guys look at the alt coin thread but not the bitcoin thread.

thread-21537...pid1444905

I have historically held a few alt coins, but largely, I have remained really skeptical of them..

Currently, I am still holding some ETC (I think that I held it and have been buying on the way down since about July/August 2016), and I was thinking there could be some short-term movement towards parity with ETH - but really ETH/ETC seems to continue to have about a 10/1 disparity... so, it is quite possible that my relatively small investment into ETC could turn out to be a loser... since they seem to be both going down together...

And, really it remains quite surprising that ETH has been able to continue a kind of market cap in the $700 million to $1.2 billion range for as long as it has. Given some of the latest developments in ETH, it seems likely to settle down into the $100million to $400 million range, and even those kinds of numbers are probably too much - yet if Ripple has been able to maintain those kinds of numbers, then probably ETH should be able to, too, no?

[JayJuanGee]

(11-15-2016 02:57 AM)andrewsr.sheila Wrote:  

Move over, Bitcoin. The world of virtual currencies is getting crowded with altcoins.

These days, there are about 20 types of cryptocurrency that sell for more than $1, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Even more are in penny-stock range.

Here are 12 cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin. Prices and market capitalization of altcoins are based on data from CoinMarketCap.com on Feb. 28, 2014, and not all are in the top 10 by either measure.



Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/investin...z4Q3ubEocq
Follow us: @Bankrate on Twitter | Bankrate on Facebook

I don't know if it matters too much regarding supposed crowded nature of alternative cryptos - especially if they provide some kind of value or innovation then it would not matter if there are a lot of them, and really, providing data that is based on a February 2014 prices is going to be ancient news in the world of crypto currencies. Lot's of stuff has gone on in cryptolandia since February 2014 - both in bitcoin and also in various crypto currencies.

In other words, if you attempt to make assessments of alternative currencies by either a blanket search on the internet or older news, you are going to be considerably mislead.

By the way, a few days ago, Zcash was mid $200s per coin, and a bit more than a week ago, it was running around $1,000 per coin. Remember also that some zcash coins sold for more than $100k per coin.. outrageous pumping and dumping.

Also, a couple weeks ago there were only a couple thousand zcash coins in circulation. Today, coinmarketcap shows that there is about 34,000 zcash coins currently in circulation.

[Satoshi]

(11-15-2016 04:28 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 02:57 AM)andrewsr.sheila Wrote:  

Move over, Bitcoin. The world of virtual currencies is getting crowded with altcoins.

These days, there are about 20 types of cryptocurrency that sell for more than $1, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Even more are in penny-stock range.

Here are 12 cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin. Prices and market capitalization of altcoins are based on data from CoinMarketCap.com on Feb. 28, 2014, and not all are in the top 10 by either measure.



Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/investin...z4Q3ubEocq
Follow us: @Bankrate on Twitter | Bankrate on Facebook

I don't know if it matters too much regarding supposed crowded nature of alternative cryptos - especially if they provide some kind of value or innovation then it would not matter if there are a lot of them, and really, providing data that is based on a February 2014 prices is going to be ancient news in the world of crypto currencies. Lot's of stuff has gone on in cryptolandia since February 2014 - both in bitcoin and also in various crypto currencies.

In other words, if you attempt to make assessments of alternative currencies by either a blanket search on the internet or older news, you are going to be considerably mislead.

By the way, a few days ago, Zcash was mid $200s per coin, and a bit more than a week ago, it was running around $1,000 per coin. Remember also that some zcash coins sold for more than $100k per coin.. outrageous pumping and dumping.

Also, a couple weeks ago there were only a couple thousand zcash coins in circulation. Today, coinmarketcap shows that there is about 34,000 zcash coins currently in circulation.

Is andrewsr.sheila your shill account JJG? So you can have someone to talk to.

[JayJuanGee]

(11-15-2016 12:01 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 04:28 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 02:57 AM)andrewsr.sheila Wrote:  

Move over, Bitcoin. The world of virtual currencies is getting crowded with altcoins.

These days, there are about 20 types of cryptocurrency that sell for more than $1, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Even more are in penny-stock range.

Here are 12 cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin. Prices and market capitalization of altcoins are based on data from CoinMarketCap.com on Feb. 28, 2014, and not all are in the top 10 by either measure.



Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/investin...z4Q3ubEocq
Follow us: @Bankrate on Twitter | Bankrate on Facebook

I don't know if it matters too much regarding supposed crowded nature of alternative cryptos - especially if they provide some kind of value or innovation then it would not matter if there are a lot of them, and really, providing data that is based on a February 2014 prices is going to be ancient news in the world of crypto currencies. Lot's of stuff has gone on in cryptolandia since February 2014 - both in bitcoin and also in various crypto currencies.

In other words, if you attempt to make assessments of alternative currencies by either a blanket search on the internet or older news, you are going to be considerably mislead.

By the way, a few days ago, Zcash was mid $200s per coin, and a bit more than a week ago, it was running around $1,000 per coin. Remember also that some zcash coins sold for more than $100k per coin.. outrageous pumping and dumping.

Also, a couple weeks ago there were only a couple thousand zcash coins in circulation. Today, coinmarketcap shows that there is about 34,000 zcash coins currently in circulation.

Is andrewsr.sheila your shill account JJG? So you can have someone to talk to.

Once in a while, I begin to believe that there could be a possibility that you, Satoshi, are recovering from your tendencies to post nonsensical trolling and distracting comments, yet those kind of short-term beliefs are quickly evaporated when I open up and read the mostly non-substantive content of your posts.

For example, this alt coin thread could serve as an opportunity for you to share some of your ideas about various alt coins (including ones that you have claimed to be "in" in the past and ones that you may consider as potentials in the present/future, but yeah, you probably don't really want to share too many altcoin ideas because likely even you realize that such a large majority of the altcoins are really trash or at least considerable risk if you attempt to invest in any kind of long-term way - especially, as compared with bitcoin. And, also you don't really seem to be into providing any genuine suggestions on alt coins because even you realize that there is a lot of bullshit altcoin propaganda out their and you become much more likely to be wrong than right (unless you are an altcoin front runner or founder) when you attempt to predict an altcoin pump/dump.

Being involved in bitcoin and continuing to read quite a bit about bitcoin has kind of forced me to learn more and more about various alt cryptos. Sometimes, they can be quite misleading and even intriguing, yet from time to time, I do attempt to hold myself out in my various positions concerning some alt coins, and I have been attempting to take various snapshot positions, and even to evolve my thinking from time to time regarding some alt coin considerations to attempt to contribute some analysis to the discussion... but yeah, there are so many alt coins that it is very difficult to monitor very many of them.

I think that a few years ago, I thought that there could be some ways to incorporate other cryptos into a longer term investment plan, besides bitcoin, but it really seems to continue to be a risky strategy to make any of those kinds of attempts to incorporate any altcoins, especially longer term.

You, Satoshi, seem to be of a quite differing view from me, and nothing wrong with that, but in essence, you had removed all of your investment in bitcoin with some kind of faith that one or more other crypto coins were going to become bitcoin 2.0.. or at least that bitcoin was pretty much set to fail.

Even though you did not have much substance in your "bitcoin is dead" assertions, you made a quite a few of those kinds of assertions.. and you still seem to fail and refuse to recognize a large amount of the material, relevant, and seemingly ongoing superiority of bitcoin, no? And, you want to battle about it, without really having much proof or logic in your battle, beyond various kinds of alt coin pumping talking points.

You got any substantive claims that you want to make, Satoshi?, and even better would be if you had facts and/or logic to back up any such substantive claims?

[Satoshi]

(11-15-2016 03:02 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

You got any substantive claims that you want to make, Satoshi?, and even better would be if you had facts and/or logic to back up any such substantive claims?

I don't know, I just asked you a question.

[booshala]

(11-16-2016 01:00 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 03:02 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

You got any substantive claims that you want to make, Satoshi?, and even better would be if you had facts and/or logic to back up any such substantive claims?

I don't know, I just asked you a question.

I just thought you found it funny getting a rise out of him, I know I laugh every time you do... 38:1 ratio of words in his reply to your question, guess he doubled down on his anti-brevity stance.

[JayJuanGee]

I personally consider the information contained in the below thread a kind of nonsensical desperation, in attempt to describe some kind of value in Ethereum.


http://bitcoinist.net/ethereum-outperform-bitcoin/


Sure there could be an end of the year pump of ethereum, but it seems to remain a pretty risky bet, especially when comparing ethereum to bitcoin fundamentals.

Surely, so far, overall bitcoin has done pretty good over the entirety of 2016, currently floating in the lower to mid $700s, after having had come up from the upper $300s to lower $400s range in the beginning of the year, but I doubt that bitcoin is as overly inflated as the article attempts to suggest... and I doubt that ethereum has as many bullish fundamentals as the article seems to assert.

[JayJuanGee]

This below linked article suggests that Ethereum's recent price drop could be due to stolen coins, and that could be true... but I am thinking that Ethereum has kind of been in for a drop, and any excuse would be sufficient when confidence in Ethereum is likely dropping anyhow.


http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/12/06/eth-re...ds-stolen/

By the way, I had been thinking that ETC was going to hold a bit better of its own against ETH, and in recent months sure both ETH and ETC have been dropping in value (and maybe even partly due to rising BTC prices) - however, in the past several days, ETC has been holding its own a bit better to ETC and even rose a tiny bit while ETH has dropped considerably.

[ElChacal]

I have like $3k worth of Monero that I bought some months ago for only $1k. The price is still very cheap IMO and I'm not a big fan of alt-coins in fact I only believe in Bitcoin and maybe Monero since they are the only cryptos accepted in the darknet markets

[JayJuanGee]

(12-07-2016 08:46 AM)ElChacal Wrote:  

I have like $3k worth of Monero that I bought some months ago for only $1k. The price is still very cheap IMO and I'm not a big fan of alt-coins in fact I only believe in Bitcoin and maybe Monero since they are the only cryptos accepted in the darknet markets

From what I have read and heard about Monero, there seems to be some decent innovations going on there, and they do not seem to be engaged in scammy behaviors.. .. so could be decent as a quasi-longer term investment... (even though I continue to believe that for the time being bitcoin is the best of the long term investments in the cryptospace). It is also nice to be in any kind of asset and have a cushion (in your case with Monero about 200% in profits).

Personally, I would not invest long term more than 10% in various alts, but it could be reasonable for other guys to conclude that 30% is reasonable for their circumstances or even have shorter-term peaks of investments into alts that attempt to leverage and time in order to make more profits... but one of the problems with pump and dumps is getting in sufficiently early (before the pumpers start to pump) and being able to exit before the dump.. not easy to liquidate profits, sometimes with some of those coins. Monero recently got added to Bitfinex, so that should help with some of its liquidity.

[JayJuanGee]

Here's a great thread talking about bitcoin and also talking about alternatives to bitcoin.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment..._there_is/

In the end, the op posts asserts that bitcoin is king, and the responses discuss and pretty much come to that same conclusion, which seems to be a correct conclusion (at least at this time).

[JayJuanGee]

Interesting to see that ETC is potentially have a life, and an existence that is competing in the long term with ETH.

They are some of the ETC insiders who are attempting to make ETC more like bitcoin with some of the ETH features - such as keeping ETC on proof of work with a limited supply and also attempting to embrace immutability philosophies (which was their initial reason for coming into existence after the DAO attack)

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/eth...1481656302

[JayJuanGee]

Here's an interesting and brief article describing how altcoins complement bitcoin (as the title indicates).


https://news.bitcoin.com/how-altcoins-co...t-bitcoin/

[JayJuanGee]

I did want to mention that I did start buying Monero in very small increments in January 2017. So every time the price drops about $.50, I buy a little more Monero. So far my lowest purchase has been around $10, so at this time, it has to go to $9.50-ish to trigger my next purchase order.

I may also be willing to buy in bulk if Monero's price dips considerably, but I have not yet made up my mind yet... I am just dabbling small in it at the moment as a kind of hedge, and I surely am prepared to lose money on it (since it is serving me as a hedge).

[Crip]

Does anyone knows anything about CoinSpace.

[JayJuanGee]

(02-13-2017 08:42 AM)Crip Wrote:  

Does anyone knows anything about CoinSpace.

It can be helpful if you focus your question a bit more because I don't even see that coin on Coinmarket cap

http://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/


And, a quick google search comes up with various "scam alert" links.


https://www.google.com/search?q=coinspac...e&ie=UTF-8


Several of the alts are scams, but some of them are more scams than others, and maybe coinspace is one of those "more than others" scams?


And, by the way, it is not really going to help your reputation on this forum, if you do not have much of a history and you seem to be making other RVF guys do all the work to research what you could have easily looked into, no?

[Armogan]

So JJG, is ETH a pump and dump scam, I want to hear your thoughts?

[JayJuanGee]

(03-18-2017 12:10 PM)Armogan Wrote:  

So JJG, is ETH a pump and dump scam, I want to hear your thoughts?

Hahahaha..

I am not really that interested in ETH, but I think that there is quite a bit of evidence that it is a pump and dump scam in terms of the degree of its centralization, which allows it to be much more easy to manipulate, take the DOA fork and the many other forks as an example and take the fact that there are centralized committees and take the fact that the supply is uncertain and sometimes can be changed and take the fact that there seems to be discretion by the ETH committees concerning when and if to change the coin from POW to POS.

There are probably some other indicators as well, but overall ETH seems to be a pump and dump to me.

Do you or anyone else have other thoughts to attempt to justify that it is not a pump and dump?

[Armogan]

(03-18-2017 02:07 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 12:10 PM)Armogan Wrote:  

So JJG, is ETH a pump and dump scam, I want to hear your thoughts?

Hahahaha..

I am not really that interested in ETH, but I think that there is quite a bit of evidence that it is a pump and dump scam in terms of the degree of its centralization, which allows it to be much more easy to manipulate, take the DOA fork and the many other forks as an example and take the fact that there are centralized committees and take the fact that the supply is uncertain and sometimes can be changed and take the fact that there seems to be discretion by the ETH committees concerning when and if to change the coin from POW to POS.

There are probably some other indicators as well, but overall ETH seems to be a pump and dump to me.

Do you or anyone else have other thoughts to attempt to justify that it is not a pump and dump?

Degree of centralization, do you mean having an active, supportive, development team that is committed to scaling the project and promoting its long-term survival? I would not consider this centralization at all.

Easy to manipulate, and then pointing to the DOA fork? This is a big misdirection on your part. They did a fork because of a massive hack of DOA funds. Anyone with half a brain would agree given the circumstances this was the right move. Essentially, it was determined to restore funds the way they were before hack, which is why there was a fork.

Further, given the consolidation and agreement of the community to fork it in this manner, and its resilience proves its not a pump-and-dump scam. It would have folded at that moment, that would have been the dump you seem to think it is.

If its a scam why did JP Morgan, Microsoft, and countless other fortune 500 companies create an alliance to promote its growth? Are they in on the scam too?

There is no discretion about shifting to PoS, it has been clearly stated. All parties are in agreement it is beneficial. In fact, moving to PoS from PoW is a good thing. Doesn't bitcoin produce as much electricity as some countries just from wasteful mining practices. The supply isn't uncertain it will be around 108m after shifting to PoS.

You clearly don't know much of what you're talking about.

[JayJuanGee]

(03-18-2017 05:50 PM)Armogan Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 02:07 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 12:10 PM)Armogan Wrote:  

So JJG, is ETH a pump and dump scam, I want to hear your thoughts?

Hahahaha..

I am not really that interested in ETH, but I think that there is quite a bit of evidence that it is a pump and dump scam in terms of the degree of its centralization, which allows it to be much more easy to manipulate, take the DOA fork and the many other forks as an example and take the fact that there are centralized committees and take the fact that the supply is uncertain and sometimes can be changed and take the fact that there seems to be discretion by the ETH committees concerning when and if to change the coin from POW to POS.

There are probably some other indicators as well, but overall ETH seems to be a pump and dump to me.

Do you or anyone else have other thoughts to attempt to justify that it is not a pump and dump?

Degree of centralization, do you mean having an active, supportive, development team that is committed to scaling the project and promoting its long-term survival? I would not consider this centralization at all.

Easy to manipulate, and then pointing to the DOA fork? This is a big misdirection on your part. They did a fork because of a massive hack of DOA funds. Anyone with half a brain would agree given the circumstances this was the right move. Essentially, it was determined to restore funds the way they were before hack, which is why there was a fork.

Further, given the consolidation and agreement of the community to fork it in this manner, and its resilience proves its not a pump-and-dump scam. It would have folded at that moment, that would have been the dump you seem to think it is.

If its a scam why did JP Morgan, Microsoft, and countless other fortune 500 companies create an alliance to promote its growth? Are they in on the scam too?

There is no discretion about shifting to PoS, it has been clearly stated. All parties are in agreement it is beneficial. In fact, moving to PoS from PoW is a good thing. Doesn't bitcoin produce as much electricity as some countries just from wasteful mining practices. The supply isn't uncertain it will be around 108m after shifting to PoS.

You clearly don't know much of what you're talking about.

hahahahaha

Whether I know what I am talking about or not, who gives a shit?

You can buy or sell ETH all that you want. I don't buy it, and I don't sell it and I don't short it.

But I can still have an opinion about it, which I think that I sufficiently stated for my own purposes, whether it is correct or not, I am not trying to advise anyone what to do in terms of ETH - except to make summary assertions that I believe that it is a pump and dump, especially in comparison to bitcoin and within the context of the bitcoin thread.

You asked me about my opinion, and I don't think that I need to justify my opinion anymore than I already have, and guys can decide for themselves what they want to do, and you certainly can have your own opinion, which you have stated.

If guys believe that that ETH has some value and they may be either to profit from its pump and dump or if they believe that it has value beyond the pump and dump, then surely they can go for it and even discuss particulars of the subject matter in this thread.

Does not really matter too much to me because I am not that interested in the ETH matter except (as I already stated) for its relation to Bitcoin and the way that sometimes, some of its dynamics may, from time to time, relate to bitcoin.. and in that context, I will likely continue to express my opinion similarly to what I already have, in summary and conclusory ways.

[Deepdiver]

Interesting email today from sovereign society publishers...

Beware the Bitcoin Bail-In
Currency August 15, 2016December 1, 2016 Ted Bauman

Imagine that, just before you read this article, you received an email from a financial institution where you have a substantial trading account…
The email said other accounts had been hacked, but not yours. Nevertheless, the financial institution was deducting 36% of your holdings and replacing them with shares in its parent company — shares that you can’t trade. You just have to hold them and hope for the best.
How would you feel? How do you feel just imagining it?

Probably a lot worse than the clients of Cypriot banks, who had to forfeit between 6.75% and 9.9% of their account holdings as part of the infamous “bail-in” of 2013. Besides the fact that the percentage is much larger, your bail-in was totally unexpected. Nobody saw it coming.
And there’s nobody to whom you can complain. The financial institution is unregulated. There’s no backstop and no clear rules. You’re entirely on your own.
That’s the situation increasing numbers of us are in these days … a situation we were promised wouldn’t happen.

Bitter Bitcoin Irony
The “genesis block” of bitcoin — the very first block of that cryptocurrency’s blockchain — contains the following statement in hexadecimal code: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” That was the London newspaper’s headline on that date.

The reference is unmistakable: Fiat currencies and mainstream banks are unsafe. If something goes wrong, your money may be on the hook. Bitcoin is the answer. As one analyst put it:
Bitcoin presented a choice that has never existed before. Its mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto described it as “a distributed system with no single point of failure” where “users hold the crypto-keys to their own money and transact directly with one another, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.” The white paper published under pseudonym was a promise. Bitcoin, which became operational in 2009, was its fulfillment. The promise was to build security through cryptographic proof, replacing third-party trust and creating networks resilient to counter-party risk.
That promise is surely a bitter irony for customers of Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex, who have lost more than one-third of their money as a result of a hack.

Stealing From Clients: Not Just for Banks Anymore

On August 2, Bitfinex said that hackers had stolen 119,756 bitcoins from some clients’ accounts. It was the second-biggest such hack in dollar terms, after the 2014 hack of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

Bitfinex later said it would spread the losses across all its customers, whether or not they had been hacked — or even held bitcoin. Customers would forfeit 36% of their holdings. As compensation, they’d receive “BFX tokens” that could be redeemed by the exchange someday, or converted to shares in its parent company.

It’s exactly the same sort of “haircut” that Cypriot bank customers received in 2013, with one essential difference: It’s unilateral and not governed by any law. Bitfinex just made it up.

Bitfinex’s terms of service say “bitcoins in your multi-signature wallets belong to and are owned by you.” That’s a clear statement of a banking relationship with its clients, in terms of which “the depository … is obligated to return, on demand, the same monetary objects deposited.” The 36% haircut of its clients, in other words, is “theft” as defined by Bitfinex.

Moreover, compensatory “tokens” redeemable by the exchange or convertible to shares are something between a bond and a security. In the U.S. at least, that requires licenses that Bitfinex doesn’t have.

Free Markets Can Be Costly…
So what are Bitfinex clients to do?
Unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitfinex exist in the free-market nirvana we’re told is the solution to all of our problems. Bitfinex is free to innovate … as it has clearly done in response to this hack.

In this regulation-free context, Bitfinex clients have the choice of accepting the company’s 36% fait accompli or suing. But if just one client goes to court, the company will almost certainly be placed in receivership, and all accounts will be frozen pending the outcome. Given that clients of cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox — which suffered the biggest bitcoin theft of all time in 2014 — are still waiting to be made whole pending ongoing court proceedings, that isn’t much of a choice.
…But They Remain the Only Answer
Many of us love bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They promise the freedom we all desire.

But large-scale trading of cryptocurrencies has recreated the exact problem bitcoin was meant to solve: a “single point of failure.” Instead of “users hold(ing) the crypto-keys to their own money and transact(ing) directly with one another,” the global cryptocurrency market is dominated by massive exchanges that operate exactly like banks, except that they are unregulated and make their own rules.

A while back I wrote an article about the looming danger of blockchain-based currencies. They promise to do away with banks, but would be vulnerable to arbitrary government interference … and confiscation.

What are we to do, then?
As one cryptocurrency analyst has put it: “Problems of centralization cannot be solved through the same modes of thinking that created them. Instead, solutions require innovation from below.”
As I write, and as you read, developers are working furiously to create a mechanism for ordinary people to trade cryptocurrencies without centralized exchanges that function exactly like banks, with all their vulnerabilities. Theirs is an open-source project that can be studied, modified and freely shared, not a private money-making business. Until they succeed, my advice is to keep your bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments modest.

Unless, of course, you fancy a 36% haircut out of the blue.

Kind regards,
Beware the Bitcoin Bail-In
Ted Bauman
Editor, The Bauman Letter

Editor’s Note: I, along with a few esteemed colleagues, publish our insight in our e-letters called Sovereign Investor Daily and Winning Investor Daily.. Every day, we send you our very best ideas to help protect and grow your wealth.

[JayJuanGee]

(03-20-2017 10:47 AM)Deepdiver Wrote:  

Interesting email today from sovereign society publishers...

Beware the Bitcoin Bail-In
Currency August 15, 2016December 1, 2016 Ted Bauman

Imagine that, just before you read this article, you received an email from a financial institution where you have a substantial trading account…
The email said other accounts had been hacked, but not yours. Nevertheless, the financial institution was deducting 36% of your holdings and replacing them with shares in its parent company — shares that you can’t trade. You just have to hold them and hope for the best.
How would you feel? How do you feel just imagining it?

Probably a lot worse than the clients of Cypriot banks, who had to forfeit between 6.75% and 9.9% of their account holdings as part of the infamous “bail-in” of 2013. Besides the fact that the percentage is much larger, your bail-in was totally unexpected. Nobody saw it coming.
And there’s nobody to whom you can complain. The financial institution is unregulated. There’s no backstop and no clear rules. You’re entirely on your own.
That’s the situation increasing numbers of us are in these days … a situation we were promised wouldn’t happen.

Bitter Bitcoin Irony
The “genesis block” of bitcoin — the very first block of that cryptocurrency’s blockchain — contains the following statement in hexadecimal code: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” That was the London newspaper’s headline on that date.

The reference is unmistakable: Fiat currencies and mainstream banks are unsafe. If something goes wrong, your money may be on the hook. Bitcoin is the answer. As one analyst put it:
Bitcoin presented a choice that has never existed before. Its mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto described it as “a distributed system with no single point of failure” where “users hold the crypto-keys to their own money and transact directly with one another, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.” The white paper published under pseudonym was a promise. Bitcoin, which became operational in 2009, was its fulfillment. The promise was to build security through cryptographic proof, replacing third-party trust and creating networks resilient to counter-party risk.
That promise is surely a bitter irony for customers of Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex, who have lost more than one-third of their money as a result of a hack.

Stealing From Clients: Not Just for Banks Anymore

On August 2, Bitfinex said that hackers had stolen 119,756 bitcoins from some clients’ accounts. It was the second-biggest such hack in dollar terms, after the 2014 hack of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

Bitfinex later said it would spread the losses across all its customers, whether or not they had been hacked — or even held bitcoin. Customers would forfeit 36% of their holdings. As compensation, they’d receive “BFX tokens” that could be redeemed by the exchange someday, or converted to shares in its parent company.

It’s exactly the same sort of “haircut” that Cypriot bank customers received in 2013, with one essential difference: It’s unilateral and not governed by any law. Bitfinex just made it up.

Bitfinex’s terms of service say “bitcoins in your multi-signature wallets belong to and are owned by you.” That’s a clear statement of a banking relationship with its clients, in terms of which “the depository … is obligated to return, on demand, the same monetary objects deposited.” The 36% haircut of its clients, in other words, is “theft” as defined by Bitfinex.

Moreover, compensatory “tokens” redeemable by the exchange or convertible to shares are something between a bond and a security. In the U.S. at least, that requires licenses that Bitfinex doesn’t have.

Free Markets Can Be Costly…
So what are Bitfinex clients to do?
Unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitfinex exist in the free-market nirvana we’re told is the solution to all of our problems. Bitfinex is free to innovate … as it has clearly done in response to this hack.

In this regulation-free context, Bitfinex clients have the choice of accepting the company’s 36% fait accompli or suing. But if just one client goes to court, the company will almost certainly be placed in receivership, and all accounts will be frozen pending the outcome. Given that clients of cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox — which suffered the biggest bitcoin theft of all time in 2014 — are still waiting to be made whole pending ongoing court proceedings, that isn’t much of a choice.
…But They Remain the Only Answer
Many of us love bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They promise the freedom we all desire.

But large-scale trading of cryptocurrencies has recreated the exact problem bitcoin was meant to solve: a “single point of failure.” Instead of “users hold(ing) the crypto-keys to their own money and transact(ing) directly with one another,” the global cryptocurrency market is dominated by massive exchanges that operate exactly like banks, except that they are unregulated and make their own rules.

A while back I wrote an article about the looming danger of blockchain-based currencies. They promise to do away with banks, but would be vulnerable to arbitrary government interference … and confiscation.

What are we to do, then?
As one cryptocurrency analyst has put it: “Problems of centralization cannot be solved through the same modes of thinking that created them. Instead, solutions require innovation from below.”
As I write, and as you read, developers are working furiously to create a mechanism for ordinary people to trade cryptocurrencies without centralized exchanges that function exactly like banks, with all their vulnerabilities. Theirs is an open-source project that can be studied, modified and freely shared, not a private money-making business. Until they succeed, my advice is to keep your bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments modest.

Unless, of course, you fancy a 36% haircut out of the blue.

Kind regards,
Beware the Bitcoin Bail-In
Ted Bauman
Editor, The Bauman Letter

Editor’s Note: I, along with a few esteemed colleagues, publish our insight in our e-letters called Sovereign Investor Daily and Winning Investor Daily.. Every day, we send you our very best ideas to help protect and grow your wealth.

The article that you are quoting in full seems to be from August and December 2016.

Things move very quickly in the crypto-space, and even topics of concern change based on information that is known at that time and/or being investigated at that time.

It seems that your article is not accounting for a variety of recent facts and developments - in other words very old news. that could be very misleading to a large number of RVF guys who may be considering those various factors that are described in that article.

If you have a better way to put your quoted article into proper context, then it would be nice for you to clarify, otherwise, it seems to be very misleading in the current way that you have quoted it and even characterized it as "interesting."

The contents of the article cannot be too "interesting" if it misleads more than it clarifies. Am I right?

[lowbudgetballer]

At this point, I'm doing far better than I realistically thought possible on Eth & Dash. I only wish I would've put more in initially.

However, I believe it's a giant pump and dump, and I'm trying to figure out when to get out. I don't wanna be the asshole left holding the sack . . .

'baller

[JayJuanGee]

(03-21-2017 12:07 AM)lowbudgetballer Wrote:  

At this point, I'm doing far better than I realistically thought possible on Eth & Dash. I only wish I would've put more in initially.

However, I believe it's a giant pump and dump, and I'm trying to figure out when to get out. I don't wanna be the asshole left holding the sack . . .

'baller

Those are tough choices, yet it seems that part of the answer to any plan should be capital preservation and incrementalism... but I know that some guys like to attempt to time the market and to predict as close as they can to the top or the bottom. I am less comfortable with that kind of approach.

You may not make as much money if you engage in some form of incrementalism, but if you pull out a little a long the way, then you can protect yourself a bit.

By the way, you are in a much different place than me, because I am too nervous to
put much if any value into any of those kinds of coins, so already your mindset is a bit different than mine because if I had put any in, I would have pulled out a long time ago.

Anyhow, it makes sense that you recognize the two as likely pump and dumps, but I do understand part of your dilemma because each of those coins does have the potential for another 2-5x pump... is it likely< ??? I certainly don't know about that and I have my doubts, but there are a lot of unexpected things that take place in crypto space.