https://themerkle.com/major-online-p...ptocurrencies/


Cryptos are penetrating deeper and deeper into the gambling industry. This is good news if you are pro crypto. Once the porn industry starts taking cryptos en masse, it's game over for fiat (just like it was for Betamax, HDDVD, etc).


--
Kahn

Cryptos are good for illicit items on the Internet (blackmail, gambling, darkweb) and as a store of value due to built in allotment of scarcity.

Beyond that, fiat institutions provide a more stable, secure transacting platform.

People should be careful investing in cryptocurrency at the moment. It's the new big pop up industry.. hundreds of new cryptocurrencies are coming to market and it is a guarantee they won't all make it.

my last ignition withdrawal was in bitcoin and I took a 6% hit, and that's the most "stable" crypto there is. Blah blah I know before someone tells me I could've gained +6% also that's not the point, I just want a god dam stable withdrawal option. And I don't believe these rooms are processing withdrawals as fast as they can. If bitcoins on a downtrend I think they process as as fast as they can, if it's upping they do it as slowly as they can.

not more secure but definitely more costly.

My withdrawals from Ignition/Bodog/Bovada have all been at the spot price and my deposits were even above the spot price a couple times. They have been very fair. The market swinging after you've been paid is not Ignition's fault. I haven't seen any market timing or shortchanging. It's not worth their effort to short you $20 on a withdrawal when they make that in 5 minutes at a single poker table.

i laugh every time someone calls bitcoin a good store of value. must be some quality crack you're smoking. i guess people are searching for a reason that bitcoin is valued so high other than the ponzi-esque reasons that obviously forecast a brutal crash.

bitcoin is the most volatile asset on the planet. it's the absolute worst place to put your money as a long term investment. eventually, it will come crashing down like the game of thrones ice wall. almost all of bitcoin's value comes from a bunch of people playing with the numbers trying to skim off the top.

the crash will most likely happen as a result of multiple market movers selling at once and triggering "the great sell-off" which never recovers. additionally, i follow a bunch of people in the bitcoin community on twitter and they're all completely willfully ignorant of US government intervention. bitcoin proponents have a strange religious zealotry that's completely disconnected them from reality. the US government could easily trigger a crash without taking very much action.

anyway, props to WPN! hopefully they are turning and burning most of these coins and hopefully they get out in time when doomsday comes!

Secure, no. More agreed upon medium of exchange, sure.

Our entire economy is ponzi-esque. Shifting into digital currency doesn't make it more ponzi-esque...you're watching the evolution of an economy.

IMO, non-reversible transactions with the interconnectedness of the Internet and accompanying exploits yet to be found are a massive security flaw.

i agree 100%. the entire economy is a literal ponzi scheme...we depend on more new people being born and working to pay for the social security of the old. that's why the birthrate in the western world is a potential catastrophe. everyone is waiting until they are 35 and then having one kid.

bitcoin isn't a literal ponzi scheme but it's value is built on a bunch of people noticing the rise in value and then their purchases further fueling the value. when bitcoin reaches its maximum number of holders and starts to decline for good, the selloffs will be rapid and brutal. it's very useful in the underground economy but it doesn't have much utility other than that. eventually, that utility will be gone when the government has full surveillance of the network or when a better more private coin takes its place.

First, I have never seen BTC as a good long term store of value, which does not mean it isn't one.Just that I do not look to it for that purpose.

Its utility is clear in any cross-border use case, for single transactions and transmission of value,so let's agree on that point hopefully.

Is holding BTC holding a volatile asset ? Yes. However, the sort of"intervention" you seem to fear is hardly an unrecognized factor, nor will its occurrence be unforeseen if it materializes.

"Ponzi scheme", the buzzword of folks seeking a catch phrase instead of real analysis.You do not seem to grasp that a "ponzi scheme" lacks ANY utility at its heart, the same cannot be accurately said about BTC. Also,a ponzi scheme depends upon a central point of failure and alack of alternative markets for the subject asset.

Can the price of BTC be manipulated ? Not as easily as in the past, when a single purchase or sale of $50,000 USD worth moved the price significantly, regardless of a lack of any motive to do so. . Can naysayers drive down a price short-term, certainly, but less and less so over time ?

Would a US ban on ownership or trading of BTC, however unlikely, drive down the price ? Certainly, but only to a level where buying would take over selling ....Consider the busy fx markets in currency pairs other than the USD, why do you think those markets are active, while you foresee an irreversable BTC price collapse if trading in USD-BTC pairs were to be prohibited ?

Go back to Twitter for your analysis, or your amusement perhaps.

100% agree with that. Although I do think bitcoin has potential to be something, there's nothing that says that potential will ever fully actualize into a full blown decentralized digital currency, however it could. There's also the potential that we could be using Amazoncoin in 5-10 years or that some other crypto will do everything we want and need better than bitcoin and takeover.

Right now we're witnessing a major evolution in our economic system and in society as a whole as we shift into digital tech and cheaper/free energy. There's no way to tell what will happen next or what the world will look like in 10 years but major changes seem to be already be in process.

Im just starting to learn more about crypto technology / markets, so not sure if this is a dumb question, but...

Are volatile price fluctuations of crypto-currency (and accompanying investor market) inherent in and by definition HAVE to be part of any crypto.

Could the market/ technology evolve in such a way that we get the all advantages of a crypto / blockchain technology and minimize or virtually eliminate the negative effect of wild price fluctuations.

Who / what are forces that help minimize the price fluctuations?


I'd agree. I dont think we've even scratched the surface of understanding the global business and societal impact of the obvious continued growth of crypto currency and block chain technology.

makes me think of the first time I ever heard of and then used the internet. It was not possible for me (or anyone ) at the time to forecast how that technology would change the world in 15-20 short years. a micro bit of time, historically speaking.

+1

look into other cryptos i think ripple is more stable?

that's why i said ponzi-esque and not ponzi scheme, you silly goose.

while bitcoin has some utility (which i already mentioned), the reason most people have purchased it lately is purely speculative. they are trying to make money. the continued high price of bitcoin depends on new buyers continually coming in at a higher and higher price. once they stop, price crashes.

this is the similarity to the ponzi scheme. there is absolutely NOTHING, other than new buyers entering the market at a higher and higher price, which is maintaining that high price. people were buying heroin online with bitcoin when they were $10 each. the price explosion has had NOTHING to do with bitcoin's utility.

i guess, but i'd just consider this part of the underground market.

oh really? because "crypto twitter" is basically a den of unbridled optimism and people who hold the view that bitcoin probably won't become the main international currency within 20 years are jeered and flamed.

here's how i know that bitcoin won't become the world standard and displace the USD, ever. because that would mean that the wealth of the entire world is currently held by a gang of nerds and a gang of chinese bitcoin miners. the impossibility of that statement is all you need to know.

yes, not as easily as in the past. but VERY VERY EASILY.

https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-ri...addresses.html

1% of bitcoin wallets are holding 99% of the coins. 96% of the wallets have 8% of the coins split between them. the 96% will be taking an absolute bath (and almost instantly) when the big boys decide to get out.

you've raised a good point, sir. bitcoin is the very first example of a new technology. and the open source nature of the project makes innovation move at a snail's pace. bitcoin has hardly changed since inception and something as simple as increasing the block size was a two year long emotion fueled battle between a bunch of nerdy coders.

what are the odds that bitcoin emerges from the flames when this experiment runs its course? i don't know, who invented the first computer? i highly doubt it was the first incarnation of microsoft or apple.

the most likely outcome for cryptocurrency is "digitized currency" will be issued by governments to make online transactions more efficient. like bitcoin, except it's USD. it won't make anyone rich. it could also be very useful for something like voting or elections or government funding in general.

Rule #1 - Don't take crypto advice from NVG

Gotta admire people with basically no clue what they're talking about making strong authoritative statements. You're just poisoning the debate and drowning out real and legitimate criticism (such as the extreme volatility of bitcoin which remains its biggest hindrance to widespread adoption).
You apparently don't even understand the underlying technology, nor do you seem to have even researched the link you yourself posted (for example, the wallet holding the highest amount of bitcoins on that chart is in fact a "cold wallet" held by the exchange Bitfinex. Then again you would've known that if you'd bothered to actually read or even skim your own link).

Look, I'm sorry a bitcoin miner ran off with your girlfriend, or whatever else happened, but save your vitriol for a different cause.

Which WPN skins have actually allowed cryptocurrencies as deposit options?
Are any of the skins reliable aside from ACR and BCP?

exhibit A

i present a valid and correct reason for the bitcoin price explosion and am accused of poisoning the well.

this is the religious zealotry i talked about earlier.

bitcoin has many more hindrances outside of the volatility. forget about minor things like hours long transaction times. who cares about the internal debate within bitcoin itself where many in the community think bitcoin should evolve to only service large transactions and should have built in large transaction fees as a way to clear up the network.

how about the fact that most people are dumb as a box of rocks and even lots of the smart ones don't actually understand what money really is. that's a pretty big hurdle if you want them to abandon the USD in favor of a currency backed by nobody and nothing. and bitcoin doesn't have a marketing budget. only people with their own financial interests.

you're correct that i don't completely understand the underlying technology but i bet i understand it better than you and as well as many of the people who call themselves "currency traders" when all they've ever done is buy bitcoin or some other altcoin and then sit on their ass while it went parabolic.

i understand completely that many of the large wallets are owned by exchanges. do you know what percentage of them are? no. do you know how exchange wallets are divided up by customer funds and company funds? no.

what's your contention? that my 1% figure is actually 3.4%? and my 96% figure is actually 89.1%? you still have the exact same problem. almost everyone in bitcoin has less than one coin and the miners and exchanges are sitting on mountains of coins the way debeers is sitting on diamonds.

nothing happened. i admire everyone skimming off the top in the crypto game. i knew about bitcoin when it was worth nothing but i didn't have the clarity or insight to know it would rise in price like this. i would like for people to understand why the value has exploded and it has nothing to do with an increase in utility. get your money and then get out before it's too late. not saying it will happen tomorrow. might be when BTC is worth 20k each. maybe 100k each. who knows!

Hey, I like this thread and the conversation. You all have made some good points, but I want to call Augie out on a strawman argument. Most proponents of cryptocurrency are not hoping to replace fiat currency like you say, some want that, but most are happy with it being just an additional tool/vehicle/technology. Of course there will always be people that want that, but they are in the minority.

Regarding Bitcoin itself it obviously has a lot of problems, and that's why other crypto will eventually rise and take it's place for purchases. Something with high speed, high security, high support, maybe like DASH or another emerging coin/tech/unit/currency.

People want to talk about security, hackers, ransomware, etc. These are huge issues, but most of these problems can be mitigated with proper planning and time. Criminals will always find a way to exploit situations, online or offline. Tools can be used for good and for bad.

Currently, I find Sia to be an interesting and promising tech; decentralized cloud based storage for cheaper than the competitors and possibly higher upload/download speeds due to the P2P nature.

2018 is going to be a very intriguing year.. the crypto game is certainly volatile, no one will argue that. New laws, new tech, greed and envy, shaking up various industries... place your bets folks.

it's not a strawman just because you aren't making the argument. the very first post in this thread mentioned it will soon be "game over for fiat." this is an absolutely prevalent attitude in the industry.

i think the most logical position to hold actually is that it will either replace fiat or go to zero. it wouldn't make sense for something like bitcoin to settle at $3,500 (or whatever) and remain stable if it's only function is to provide financial services for the underground market.

i agree with you that there's a future for the technology. i think the technology itself is interesting and promising. i think it's very far fetched that i can buy 1% of the supply of some altcoin today for peanuts and in a few decades i'll be one of the richest men in the world.

and there you go, goose58. it only took an hour after you declared "most people are not hoping to replace fiat currency" for jacksonvilledodger to declare the bitcoin's "greatest utility" is a hedge against the inflation of fiat currency.

of course i don't disagree that a venezuelan would have been much better off trading all of their own currency for bitcoin 10 years ago. but this is a really weird example because it's more an example of the failures of socialism. bitcoin represents pure capitalism which is obviously superior.

once again, i don't disagree with the logic of someone who thinks crypto will eventually replace fiat. i just think that outcome is very far fetched compared to the odds it goes to zero.

the USD being the global currency is a vital interest to the US government and is potentially a national security interest. if bitcoin or any other currency actually threatens that it will unleash the full power of the government upon it.

Augie has no idea what he is talking about. His speculation is ignoring the value of the utility of bitcoin in an almost completely dismissive way. In my first hand experience bitcoin has been extremely useful. Getting money into my online poker account paying much less than 1% in fees using bitcoin vs paying with a debit card and being charged 5%. Five percent is huge dude. Thats one aspect.

The utility of bitcoin is huge! Wanna send money to Joe Schmoe across the world? Bitcoin. Do you think that in the future there will be more or less shopping on the internet? Bitcoin is bound to become more widely adopted and used as online payments. With its scarcity the value is bound to go up.