It's 100% petty but the bolded is false. The Crypto environment is so toxic that watching it succeed or fail is the source of enough salt that it's worthwhile for a lot of spectators.

Last time I checked Bitcoin is still worth 1 BTC

haven't thought about bitcoin in awhile. it's actually doing better than you would expect, lots of HODLers. the million dollar question is, at this point, how do you get more suckers to the table ?

im just rage-buying at this point

Hilarious how quick people are to say its over. All the fundamentals are the same. We may tumble down quite a lot more from here, but that's fine. I'm saying that having lost millions of dollars, I am not worried in the slightest.
A lot of people ask me what I think, but I don't even check the price - my life is exactly the same. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Here are some quick points raised from the most recent page, in no particular order:

First, direct merchant adoption doesn't matter (in the sense people are using it - "clearing" is different), the use case is not buying coffee. Not even for a tired argument about blockchain size, but because its not enough of a pain point.

There's quite a lot of development in the space, and this development is already very well funded so it won't go any time soon. Cryptocurrency, in terms of the usability, the security, the feature set, is improving. If you assume any reasonable rate of improvement, in 10 years the product will be stellar (eg. cellphones)

For short term prices, there are a myriad of reasons why there may be big shocks in the price. We've expected big shocks and every reasonable mathematical model of bitcoin's price has had extremely, extremely high variance.

This is still a very early stage. Many ****coins are still worth a bunch, but will eventually be worth near zero. No true consolidation has happened yet.

The level of excitement by the public can push the price up or bring it down, but that is a trader's mindset. Maybe some people bought it to speculate it would be worth $1m, then they bowed out after they got hurt. That can affect the price, but if you have the timescale of a decade, you're not really focused on that. This reminds me of Buffet's story of buying KO, if you bought it at $2.50 vs $1, it doesn't matter because it's at $50 now.

I don't agree that there aren't people looking to whale in. People with significant net worth (50M+) are always looking to diversify risk. Bitcoin is a way to diversify risk as it is not correlated to other asset classes. Many banks have crypto desks or are building them. Retail clients will buy. Funds will buy.

Bitcoin has a few use cases which are large and which Bitcoin is undeniably good at: buying illegal goods, remittance, avoiding forex, avoiding taxes. It also has currently fringe cases like programmable money, that may prove to be a significant part of the future.

However, the elephant in the room is fixed supply. If you believe Ray Dalio, the debt crisis is coming within a few years. Then, where should we be bullish? China, and Bitcoin. We are in the middle of a giant zero interest rate experiment. When everything starts to unwind, what will people do? We actually have some precedent that in ****hole countries that people switch to bitcoin, so it's not that far fetched that people will demand it.

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It was not well understood what was actually created.

First, tell that to Venezuelans. Second, 99%+ of the world either doesn't know or is too broke to care. If you have $100 in savings, and you lose $2 purchasing power this year from inflation [because you don't have frictionless access to markets], you're not thinking about it - you're more worried about how to put food on the table. And btw, inflation is not actually 2%, because that is more like a median case. The mean (on a larger time scale) is a lot worse.

Of course, you have idiots (some in this thread) spouting bull**** junked into an ECON 101 textbook about how "well, actually..." inflation is great because the velocity of money goes up which is a crucial indicator of health in a growing economy -- like in Germany when they ran the wheelbarrows of cash around. Or it's necessary to prevent a deflationary spiral, because if the money supply was fixed, then OMG no one will ever buy anything!!!1111oneoneeleven. That was some flimsy bull**** they told you to justify it.

Alex, do you consider yourself a conspiracy theorist? Are you against vaccines? Did we fake the moon landing? Global warming? Is "Don't trust what they tell you in Econ 101?" the only conspiracy you believe in?

I'm grinding long hours to buy more.

That's one good thing about the crash, it gets me to actually put in time at the tables.

They say the real bottom comes when people have lost all hope. I suppose not everyone is there yet but I certainly am!

Bitcoin can still have a bright future but people like Alex don't seem to understand that a lot of the use cases can be implemented with any blockchain without paying the early adopters of bitcoin.

This is starting to look more like it. There's less gloating about certain people capitulating. When people are still happy some are capitulating, there's still too much hope. Emotions right now are way more flat, as they should be in a true capitulation.

They are trading at a ridiculous 4300 USD which is hilarious for a currency that no one uses except for gamblers, druggies and pedos. I'd say Bitcoin is 5% DrugCoin, 5% PedoCoin, 10% GamblingCoin, and 80% PonziCoin.

I read today that ICOs took in $30 billion last year, and not one delivered a user base. That gives you an idea of the size of frantic FOMO ponzi around bitcoin - less than 1 in 20 who'd speculate on bitcoin would get into ICOs I'd say. So we had hundreds of billions in ponzi speculator money that flowed into bitcoin - probably about the same relative magnitude as flowed into the tulip or South Sea bubbles.

It seems like volatility and volume died as ponzi interest dried up and now a whale or two is getting out while they can.

Why do you use ICO's and Bitcoin in one sentence?

Dear god, let it bounce back to $5k to get rid of this nonsense again. If it's bigger than $5k you leave again right?

I use ICOs and Bitcoin in the same sentence because it puts a lower bound on <10% of the ponzi money flowing into this space. That's instructive on how much of bitcoin is likely ponzi (most of it - many hundreds of billions of free flowing money were chasing ponzi returns if $30 billion was chasing obvious fraud/scam ICOs).

The analysis answers this question:

"What caused the price rise? Were people buying into the vision/legit use cases or buying for ponzi returns"

With a very clear "the large majority were buying for ponzi returns".

And no, I don't leave if it goes above $5K. I just said I'd be back when it goes below. Too bad it couldn't stay above $5K. Not a big ask.

I havent owned any bitcoin since February but how is this any different from the last crash from 1200 to sub 200? In fact it isn't nearly that bad yet. The last time we went through this it followed this same pattern. Huge 20 percent selloffs followed by long periods of relatively stable price before the next selloff.

The only thing i know for sure is that crypto as a whole is not useless. Whether it's current valuation is high or low is another matter altogether. Yes everything is down massively but the runup to 20k was a massive bubble and those are usually painful processes to unwind.

Alex if all you say is true, and you're preparing for some eventuality that is years off, how do you not sell at 10k, or 8k, or 6k....Surely there is more than enough liquidity for you to cash out, make your millions, even SHORT IT, and then buy back. I mean if you are only interested in being long here, as smart as you are, there's a problem.

Now all that being said I have no idea how much you sold, and have no idea if you did or didn't short. I'm just making some assumptions based on your tone.

The other question is how many millions would have been enough for you? What was the ROI you were going to be happy with?

These two sentences together made me laugh.

If we are being 100% honest with ourselves, how much of bitcoin's rise and subsequent fall is tied to sentiment? If you put the smartest dudes on the planet at this, is there any chance at all they say it's less than 90%? And this happens with stocks too, the shippers phenom is the same, this isn't just a crypto thing. Humans are greedy, it's the only logical conclusion you can come to when you see a story like Alex where millions are left on the table in favor of more millions.

What could be better than cashing out 5-6 mil, buying a ranch in the mid-west and a condo in a city, and just enjoying life while working say 10 hours a week? There's no real plausible reason to pass on that outside of pure greed. But I guess one can say that about Bezos and all the greats who never settle. It's interesting to contemplate.

I *sincerely* hope you get the millions back Alex. I would be more than happy to see this thing turn around and go to 100k so I could shake your hand and say your vision was bang on.

There isn’t a difference, except that this time it’s had mass public exposure and now people are losing interest/don’t care anymore, too many people got rekt and will most likely never return to crypto.

it could be back to 10k by Christmas

this isn't new

i'm still holding for same reasons I bought, Alex pointed out some of them

fixed supply is definitely key and something I can stand behind. paper currency is stupid. yes, I'm ignorant. yes, I do not know anything about monetary policies, like how often it gets printed or what drives that rate up and down, etc. But, a fixed supply enables me to realize value much more than an unfixed supply. It's fixed, there will be no more of it. It is probably in large what has kept precious metals/stones in good/fair shape throughout history. fixed supply!

I am an American and I am rural. But, although my melting pot is minor to some on a scale of degree, I am trying to think long, as one, global. We're all one people, why not one currency? things will keep meshing. All of these small countries, do you really see it staying like this throughout time? Like Africa, in 20-50 years are there going to be the acclaimed 47 to 55 countries there are now? I don't think so. Regions will start to mesh, become one, and then so will those larger regions. that's how I see it, it may take way longer than the stated timeframe I gave as well, and it will for the largest of those degrees too happen. But, can't you see this world becoming one big melting pot? Personally, that's what I want to see happen, and it has happened, and it will continue to happen. BTC could become the most groundbreaking stepping stone for that melting, paper currency is like the old wallpaper.

my thinking is mostly along the lines with Alex's. The huge swings seem natural with the given territory, whole new asset class trying to break in. I mean do I think it is really ****ed up how it can run to 20k and then be 4k 11 months later, with literally no landscape change? yes! But when u think about things from 2009, it's probably where it's supposed to be, who am I to say obv, but....

the runup was like the official introduction. Noone knew what a bitcoin was, well many(most). Somehow, some way, it wanted to introduce itself, finally, and I guess no one was quite ready for it no worries. I think it's going to keep trying, the old re-introduction, could just be a better one. I'm down quite a bit now and still feeling like T.I.




until the next runup. Crypto still sounds very futuristic

maybe he already has those things? maybe he doesn't value those things? maybe the curiosity, challenge, hypothesis + risk outweighs those things? he would rather speculate and invest to watch his money grow/or lose than buy those things. Maybe he really values those things and wants 15 of them

everything is in the eye of the beholder. i've been hearing it more and more, think big to get big results, think little to get little results(that doesnt mean blindly guessing on btc). he's done his homework. it's all a scale of degree. he's leaving millions as you stated, in hopes to get more millions. But Mcdonald's Mike, who only bought $100 is in the same boat, they both have the same concept in mind.

Being net down $ in crypto in 2018 means you shouldn't have been in the market to start. Amazing that new crypto hedge funds, billion dollar companies (bitmain, nvidia) didn't have a single person to forecast the quite trivially simple outcome being observed. Sharp traders were out at close to 20k, the fake-out-bounce to 17k before it all fell apart was even clearer.

I'm fortunate that I have been able to buy just before every Bitcoin run up and have sold just before every day it went down. All about doing your homework. Now I am quite wealthy and tall.

The same as they were when it was trading at 200

This is a silly post, zero proof "sharp traders" were bailing out around 20k (basically the absolute peak where you had a day or two to cash out) or that the fake out bounce to 17k was some kind of clear signal. If it was so simple I guess you've made a fortune cashing in your long/going short since?

So what is the context when an analyst like Tom Lee makes a price prediction for bitcoin (I guess you could say the same thing for price targets for stocks as well)?



His current prediction is $15k by the end of the year. He doesn't really cite any evidence or data for it, except that the "fair market value" is $7k because that's supposedly what it costs to mine. Which makes an over 2x jump over fair market value in 6 weeks to be pretty ludicrous. He also throws out a bunch of other numbers that may or may not be true.

He even outright says at the end he's not that confident in his own prediction. So he's saying "My official prediction is that bitcoin will hit $15k in 6 weeks....but I'm not sure about it." That's like saying "60% of the time, it works every time."

The other news anchors didn't really grill him too hard on his prediction number either. The sense I got was that these people go on TV all the time and spout out random numbers and if they actually tried to pin people down on predictions the whole charade would fall apart. Kind of like how most cable TV shows ask politicians softball questions because they would lose access if they were too tough and 90% of what politicians say is bull**** anyway so that charade would fall apart as well.

So who is the target audience of his supposed prediction? Clients of his company? Is he shilling for himself and his friends to pump up the price? Is he just pulling provocative numbers out of his ass to appear on TV?

There are a large bunch of hopeful losers who go long things like Bitcoin, Tesla, Snapchat, etc. When it falls apart their entire world goes belly up. Getting headlines and interview spots offering hope to these people so they invest with you is a pretty standard business model for the shadier investment houses. Another example is Gerber with Tesla. It's unlikely he believes his own bull**** but he has to keep spewing it. The guy who speaks hope when things are going bad has weak minded losers flock to them which means higher AUM and plenty of management fees.