Here's a few more

Cofound.it A distributed VC ecosystem for the distributed future.

Ever heard of IPOs? Of course you have. Well, the blockchain makes it possible for anyone to pitch their idea to a crowd without the expensive middleman

The token crowdfunding space is growing quickly. In 2016, a total of $200M of investments was raised, and $400M is projected for 2017 (Techcrunch). This represents around half of the traditional venture funding last year in the blockchain space (Coindesk Report). This year we expect blockchain companies to raise more capital through ICOs than any other form of financing, an historic event that flips over the traditional venture capital pipeline (Harvard Business Review). There is a clear need for a service providing additional structure - from carefully selected teams to active mentoring. Such a service could capture the whole “high end” segment of around 25%-50% of the market (the Apple strategy).

BitBay. Ebay, but better. People complain about PayPal/eBay all the time. So now the market is working on a better, decentralized, uncensored version.

Decentralized Markets

We offer a free decentralized marketplace, with no fees, no arbiters and no chargebacks. Trade internationally with anyone. It’s like a combination of eBay, Alibaba and oDesk.

Advanced Security

Every account uses two keys, rendering your account unhackable, especially if two locations are used. Give each key a different password. Security on a whole new level.

Unbreakable Contracts

BitBay offers revolutionary unbreakable contracts, which allow you to agree on literally anything and know the other party will honor their part of the agreement.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of other industries on the verge of being disrupted. Look at gambling alone. How long will it be before a blockchain based, low/no vig betting exchange replaces what once was Matchbook for US customers? What about fantasy sports? Blockchain tech can conceivably save us on the 10+% rake and avoid the legal issues since it will all be decentralized. Bye bye Draftkings and Fanduel? Maybe.

Yeah. Imagine a system where you have to wait 1 minute (at best) to 5+ minutes to load each page. Where there are barely any products for sale. Where hackers and scammers could steal your personal info. Who knows if you'll even get your item at all?

Sounds like Amazon will put brick and mortar out of business.

You sound like a dinosaur, incapable of seeing beyond today. You think blockchain tech will improve over time, or stagnate/get worse in 3-5 years?

TenX

"TenX has figured out how to solve one of the biggest problems for people that are involved in cryptocurrency -- actually spending the currency."

Maybe this will be the killer app that Windows 95/iPhones were for mass consumer adoption. A physical debit card to spend your cryptos. Once we get faster settlements, we will really see things take off. Just a matter of time before someone huge (Amazon, Walmart, whoever) starts doing business in crypto. Things like this will only speed it up. It makes sense if you think about it. Amazon and Walmart really can't accept crypto until the masses are comfortable with it. And right now, the speed is painfully slow for Bitcoin transfers. Luckily, there are dozens of projects working on speeding up not only Bitcoin but other alt coin transfers. You think Walmart would be interested in cutting down their fees paid to Visa/Mastercard from say 2% to even just 1.75%? Uh, yeah. Blockchain tech could possibly trim those fees down to ZERO. To a company like Walmart that's tremendous value. They are famous for pressuring suppliers over fractions of a penny here and there, because they obviously know that 1/2 of a penny saved times 50 billion transactions or units is huge.

Do you have any idea how much new tech has failed or been replaced by something far better?

You sound myopic, stuck in what you know and incapable of imagining the world of possibilities outside of that.

It will likely be corporates that end up controlling the blockchains. And they won't be based on the ones that exist already.

And comparing distributed encrypted ledgers, a minor tech that doesn't do much new or interesting, with the Internet - something that enabled the most fundamental type of low level data transfer - is hilarious. Especially when to profit you need to pick which one will win. And it's likely a coin that hasn't been invented yet - which means the ones you hold now are going to zero.

Yeah, I'm totally on board with the bolded part. There will be many more Pets.com than Amazon.com, for sure. You can see that already with stuff like Trump Coin and Ron Paul Coin. You don't just blindly buy every cheap coin, or every top 50 market cap coin, or every ICO. But if you do a bit of DD you can possibly find some huge winners, the next Google or Amazon selling at $1 when it will be $500+ in a few years. Hitting just a few of those 500+ baggers will erase any losses on the others. And the bonus is that we haven't really reached peak bubble or anywhere near it yet, so even the losers will go up in value for a little while before crashing.

I do think when the first "killer app" that enables mass (Amazon, or at least Uber level) adoption/awareness hits, you will have time to buy in and make a killing, and it probably will be fairly obvious to people who are paying close attention. It could be cloud storage, if Netflix signs on with one. Or a physical debit card. Or something else. Who knows. But there are companies out there who are building the blank slate for these types of apps to pop up. Ark, Blocknet, Etherium, Antshares are all working on the back end stuff so developers can easily point, click, and build. We'll see.

It's ironic that you call me stuck in what I know. I openly and readily admit that I do not know which industries will be disrupted first, or most by blockchain related tech. I think I have a decent idea, and I'm always reading and trying to learn more so I can make better investments. I feel like 1992, saying "the internet will change the world." Making money was obviously harder than just saying that, and buying any new internet related stock. But it also opens up the strong possibility that I'm gonna find a 1000+x before the masses catch on. And even if 500 others go to zero (unlikely, since again I'm not just randomly picking coins), that 1000x+ will more than make me a bundle. We aren't in a bubble yet. No one knows any coins besides MAYBE bitcoin, litecoin, and etherium. Ask 10 people outside, and 9/10 will tell you to **** off or laugh. When we get to the point where your Uber driver, your barber, and your neighbor are all buying Antshares, then maybe we would be in a bubble. Nowhere near that right now.

This 100%. There is no way in hell that the financial elites are going to allow a select few bagholders of bitcoin to control x% of the worlds wealth once it reaches a certain point. The only hope bitcoin has is to maintain its current niche, which is fast cross-border remittances and pseudonymous purchases. The bigger it gets, the more likely it is to fail, not less, and for reasons most people are quite aware of but choose to ignore because all their hopes and dreams are in bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency of a sort will probably take over certain markets, and it might even take over world finance eventually, but it ain't gonna be bitcoin, or ethereum, or any other open source software. It will be the financial elites personally designed, closed source software, and it will be enabled and held up by laws written by the people the financial elites have in their pockets, like every other law.

Anarcho-capitalist dreams are just that...dreams.

Things change, dinosaur.

Sometimes you don't have a choice. You think the retail giants were gonna let some little website named Amazon take over retail?

Adapt or die. There's no way to stop cryptos at this point, any more than you can roll back the printing press or the internet.

Trying to stop Bitcoin with laws won't work. Hacking it won't work. And even if Bitcoin somehow fails, there's already thousands of replacements just waiting to take the top spot. You must be so confused.

This is a big lol.
This is potentially a lol, although the odds are on your side.

Consider, though: If the communist party of China decided it was in their interest to destroy Bitcoin, they could. Bitcoin is centralized, and the world's nastiest party dictatorship controls it.

You never thought Bitcoin would ever reach $1, let alone $5, let alone $10, certainly not $50, for sure not $100, it's definitely a bubble at $150, $200 is insane, $250 okay this has to be it, $300 but wait it has no uses outside of drugs and gambling, $500 okay we will never see $600, wow $750 this is irrational exuberance for sure, okay $950 it will see heavy resistance at $1000, $1500 this is definitely a bubble, $2000 look at the market cap, surely it will fail soon, $3000 pure speculation is driving this...

What will you say when it recovers 3k and hits 4, 5, 6, 10, 20k? Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll sound so smart while missing huge gains.

Trying to stop cryptos with laws won't work even if every country passes laws against them, which won't happen. Have you noticed huge multi national banks and companies like Microsoft getting involved?

And hacking Bitcoin somehow would be like someone hacking AOL in the early days. Would that be the end of the internet? Or would things get more secure after the fact and in reality continue growing?

Communists destroying Bitcoin? Lol. Even if this fantasy came to pass, do they have the ability to destroy litecoin, etherium, ripple, and a host others valued at $100 million+? Wake up. You aren't even making sense. This is like saying the government could crush eBay if it was in their best interest. Well yeah, I guess, but so what? There's more than one crypto.

Your comparison of Bitcoin with the Internet is comical.
I called it a strong buy twice at $250, for a target over $1000. So no. Like everything else, your characterization of the Bitcoin bears is wrong.

Cryptos in general are internet 2.0

So you're a Bitcoin bear who said to buy at 250 and sell at 1k? The fact that you think you can somehow value or time Bitcoin is hilarious. Oh, it was cheap at 250 but expensive at 1k? Based on what? You don't even understand any of the Alt coins, which is where the future lies. Hence Bitcoin falling from 90%+ market share in crypto to around 40%.

The only thing I'm sure of is that cryptos in general are extremely cheap compared to where they will be in 5+ years. Whether it's Bitcoin, etherium, or some other coins is the puzzle to figure out.

Is there a functioning thought in your head? What you wrote about isn't even a meaningful sentence.

The Internet is a vast global infrasctructure that enabled a profound low level ability that didn't exist before - instant transfer of any digital information.

Encrypted public ledgers are just databases with access keys. They're a fraction of a fraction of existing capabilities and of the Internet. It's comical comparing Bitcoin as an invention with the Internet. And a sure sign that the person saying it is like a lost puppy in a new digital world they don't understand.

Logic and reason.

Bitcoin has fallen from 90% share to 40% share for the same reason that Royal Blue tulips fell from 90% share to 40% share. Competition and a lack of scarcity. It says nothing about the viability of the alternatives, or the whole field.

How are you sure of this? Considering that they provide no utility beyond illegal transactions, where is the trillion dollar market cap coming from?
Yes, buy them all, that's a sure way to get rich. It worked with the revolutionary new technology of cars.

Cryptos have the ability to dramatically disrupt traditional banking, venture capital, cloud data storage, and advertising, to name just a few projects that are being worked on now. I posted about them earlier. Maybe you should do some reading.

If anything these threads prove that I am missing out by not starting my own crypto.

You can probably call it scam coin, or ponzi coin and people still find a way to rationalize why they should buy it.

Turns out there is already a ponzi coin LMAO:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ponzicoin/

Reached a market cap of $75k too.

Crypto is trustless programmable money. If you can't see many, many uses for that then you lack imagination.

Title transfer and insurance.

Prediction markets.

Fast worldwide payments without censure.

Escrow.

Anonymous proof of ownership.

Automated contracts.

Retail giants never had the clout, power or money of the financial institutions. The concept of independent money (the ancaps are right) threatens their monopoly in this area. However, that monopoly is enabled and enforced by governments, which they own, and they will never relinquish control.

Um, one statute calling bitcoin money laundering software and banning legitimate businesses from accepting it is enough to totally destroy it. Who's going to change bitcoin into real spendable currency when there is no point in holding it anymore? Bitcoin has been LUCKY it has got this far.

All it would take is one piece of legislation, and bitcoin would be destroyed over night. No one is going to want it if they can't convert it into actual money, and when no one wants it, the price falls to zero.

No one is arguing against the concept of crypto. What the bears are arguing against is bitcoin and any other independently developed crypto. None of these have the slightest chance.

Cryptos as a concept are neat, and they do have legitimate uses. Do those uses have more utility than our current system? In some areas I would say they do. In most, they do not. However, if you think that bitcoin is going to be the crypto that banks and other financial institutions use in the future then just lol. The Bank of Canada is already developing its own cryptocurrency. Bitcoin itself is 100% doomed to fail, barring miracles/disasters that somehow keyhole it into mass usage, and so is ethereum, ponzicoin, dogecoin, etc etc etc. The one that has a chance is ripple. It has connections to financial and political bigwigs, it is not really actually a cryptocurrency and can be centrally controlled.

What?

People have been calling a "bottom" in Bitcoin since it hit about 25 cents. People posting here think they can time or call the bottom are hilarious. Over time, Bitcoin will rise unless something drastic changes, such as a major, major failure/attack on it or a Mt Gox style meltdown. USD supply is constantly increasing/unlimited, and BTC supply is capped, so that alone will provide upward pressure on BTC/USD prices over time. Again, if there's a major shift, sure, things will be different. Maybe a newer, better coin comes in and takes away the mantle for #1, but I'm bullish on cryptos in general so it doesn't matter.

This is really a meaningless discussion anyway, it's the same as arguing over whether AOL will continue to rise in value. Probably, yes. But even if AOL somehow is hacked/outlawed/fails otherwise, the internet sector as a whole is just getting started. Cryptos are at a similar point now as internet stocks in 1995. Some, most even, will crash and burn to 0 after a huge speculative runup. The survivors will likely be the next Amazon/Google and make their holders rich.

Just remember, people called every internet stock a "bubble" as they gained 50, 100, 1000% and kept rising. A lot of those stocks did end up at 0, and a lot of the survivors ended up making their holders filthy rich. You realize there's the option to cash out in the midst of a bubble, right? And we aren't anywhere near there, yet. There will likely come a time when nearly every coin doubles in price very quickly just due to pure speculation. At that point, you can decide whether to hold whatever coins you have, or sell, or whatever. Just because something that's ultimately in a bubble (Pets.com) ends up falling to 0, doesn't mean you can't make money while it goes up. I'm not saying you should try to go all in and time the market, but in general, cryptos will be going up over time, and even if it ends up being "irrational," there will be plenty of money to be made.

The key obviously is do your own DD, and diversify, be flexible. I have my own coins I think are long term holds, and will be the next Etherium, and others I'm purely speculating on based on the team or their vision/roadmap. I'm not "all in" on any coin or group of coins, and I can sleep at night if I lose everything. YMMV

This concept that "the powers that be" can just acquire or copy a block chain is being thrown around just a bit too recklessly. "Acquiring" Bitcoin essentially means completing a 51% attack which, while possible for a government to do, would be extraordinarily expensive and vulnerable to a consensus hard fork by the 49% community. This highlights a very critical nuance in the architecture of distributed consensus public blockchain protocols: not only does the security of the entire system increase with increasing distribution (i.e., nodes,) so does the viability of a forked chain. This has been demonstrated by ethereum and the DAO.

Bitcoin was most vulnerable to a 51% attack and nefarious double spends the day Satoshi mined the first block. Everyday since it has become more secure. So powerful entities can't just make a new Bitcoin. I mean, they CAN, but it would be less secure than bitcoin due to the inherent architecture of distributed consensus protocols.

Now, what powerful entities like banks or governments could actually do is use a private blockchain. So, sure, Amazon can use a private chain to serve as their ledger keeping and value transfer vehicles. But that would just be co-opting one tiny component of blockchain technology for private use. A private chain can never threaten Bitcoin because it is by definition centralized and sensored.

So catching up with Bitcoin, even if you are a massive entity, is very very difficult. So is legislating it out of existence. And even if you are so big and so rich that you could just buy a 51% attack- it is almost a certainty that the remaining consensus pool would say "fork you."

While I love reading crypto bear arguments and feel like this discussion is well served by them, simply acknowledging faulty premises like "powerful entities will just buy, break, or co-opt Bitcoin" doesn't propel the discussion.

Bucco,

I understand your analogy to internet stocks perfectly well. I just found it odd that you told TS it's hilarious that he thinks he can predict the crypto market and then you proceeded to make an array of predictions with apparent certainty.

I do think that we will eventually see Google coin, Amazon coin, Walmart Ccoin, even Uber coin, and maybe that will become the moment that crypto truly goes full on mainstream. Either that, or all the major players start accepting one or more cryptos widely, something that's obviously fast, safe, secure etc and has a proven track record. The possibilities are really interesting.

An Amazon coin, for example, could be used for various things. One, obviously for spending on Amazon or at Whole Foods. Two, for cloud data storage. Three, it could be used by advertisers to market products on their site. Basically any use case that crypto ultimately does have could be used by each one on their own platforms. If Amazon ends up building out to include a fleet of self driving cars, then Amazon coin would be the preferred payment method, would save your data on chain, etc. There's obviously massive inefficiencies at any large corporation that this tech can help reduce or eliminate.

You missed my point. Trying to predict or call a top in bitcoin is like trying to call a top in the Nasdaq in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997. It has gone from sub 1 cent to $3000 and every step of the way the bears have been calling it a bubble, saying it's a top, laughing whenever it corrects by even 10-15%. When will you ever just admit defeat? Even if you think it's in a bubble, bubbles tend to get extremely large and crowded and defy common sense. We aren't anywhere near that point, is my main argument. The average investor has no clue how or where to even buy Bitcoins, if they know what they are at all. When you see Bitcoin making the nightly news every day for a week or more because it's up to $10k and up 10% per day for a week straight, maybe then you can start talking about a top. Until then it's just shouting at the clouds.

BUBBLE
BUBBLE
BUBBLE
BUBBLE

Sure, it's in a bubble. Same as when it was $1.