Have you checked Bitmex?

Exactly this.

I signed up for it long ago but never used it. Had a few people mention it today so looking at everything now. Thanks a lot!

Agree

The BTC1 fork in November will be of much greater interest. There are many noobs to the scene who do not understand the risks associated with a successful BTC1 takeover.

I realize this is anecdotal, but I joined a few upstart trading groups and the common belief is this is just another airdrop akin to BCH. Zero discussion of replay/wipeout risks, the "firing" of Core development team, and all the negatives of a successful 2X. They advice buying Bitcoin pre-fork, sit on the sidelines, collect both coins, and regardless of what happens, the combined value with be >= current Bitcoin.

Yeah the 2x fork should be a bit crazier. Makes me wonder wtf is the point of the BTG fork then?

To lower the price of alts while everyone jumps on btc to get their free gold.

Hey guys I’ve done some brief research on this fork coming up and I still don’t get it. So I just keep my money in the Blockchain app. What should I be doing before this fork happens? Is it going to be a problem leaving it in there?

Not sure if this has been posted, but apparently it takes over 200 kWh of electricity to do a SINGLE bitcoin transaction. So if you walk to the shop and purchase a coke with your bitcoin, you've burnt 7 days worth of electricity for the average household.



Do you guys see this as desirable or sustainable?

No it isn't and that why BTC is seen a lot more as "gold" (a storage of wealth) than a currency used for everyday transacations by many afaik.

i did some light reading on the history of gold because i've always hated the BTC : gold analogy since the first time i heard it.

as a currency, think of gold as "God's fiat currency" and not as a commodity (though, it is that too, but it's properties as a commodity are different from it's properties as a currency).

gold became a currency because it's rare, but not too rare, and it's easy to melt and turn into coins. the whole idea behind currency is it's symbolic; the article of trade itself need not have any value. but it has to be rare. you don't see piles of $5 bills just lying around the streets. similarly, it's hard to find gold just walking around looking for it. so it was a perfect fit for a currency. it had very little industrial value, outside of jewelry, back when gold coins where a large part of commerce.

gold's value in use as a currency historically is for VERY different reasons than for it's industrial value today. gold has many industrial uses today and it's truly rare, so it will have value tomorrow and for the foreseeable future.

how is BTC like gold? unfortunately, it's identical to gold for it's use as a symbolic currency. (artificial) scarcity and a symbolic agreement.

BTC is nothing like gold for it's industrial applications. BTC is open source and i can make an exact copy of it. nobody will care. you can't copy gold. you can't recreate it's properties in a lab. if you want to compare BTC to an element it's hydrogen, not gold.

use cases of hydrogen much higher than use cases of gold!!!

The value of Bitcoin is also derived from its security.

You can make a spinoff, all it will do is attract zero hashpower and be vulnerable to attack.

People looking to store value in Bitcoin will only trust the longest valid chain

yea but i can buy a kilo for $1.40

Thanks for the suggestions, was able to recover the couple of coins (as apparently this isn't the first time an old person has done this ).

your analogy is ridiculous

right. but my spinoff is identical to bitcoin. so it could be exactly as valuable as bitcoin as long as everyone makes the symbolic agreement.

you can safely store some of your money in gold knowing it will ALWAYS have an element of value due to it's industrial use. no symbolic agreement is necessary. bitcoin's value vanishes the moment the symbolic agreement goes away.

augie, gold's value actually mostly comes from strong highly reliable demand for use in jewelry and ornamentation. Most people disagree with this until they see the figures.

The notion that something can be a store of value without a secondary demand (or reliable drawing rights on some economic output) is silly.

jewelry would be under the industrial use category

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-1...ncy-calm-storm

lol that article

Congrats!

Gold is valuable more than anything because it’s ability to hold value. Gold is also valuable because of the entire industries built around it. Bitcoin is nearly identical in these applications but is even more dynamic in its functional use as a currency.

Gold doesn’t have built in safety features to store and back it up on your phone or send it across the world making bitcoin superior in many ways.

Crypto currency is kind of a best of both worlds currency and commodity with the added benefit of being decentralized.

If there was no belief in the scarcity of gold and it’s ability to hold value it’s price would be a fraction of a % if it’s current value. In this way it is no different than bitcoin.

Gold is valuable because it's very rare compared to the desire to use its uniquely shiny yellow properties in jewelry and ornamentation.

The idea that gold has its value because of a "belief in holding its value" is pure delusion and has nothing to do with the value of gold.

It's a common delusion you have, though.