Pretty hard to come up with better analogies. Anything you try and use won’t be that great since there’s really never been anything like it.

Imagine saying bitcoin has 0% chance to hit 50k before 15k, then when it does, coming back to this thread and calling other people dumb

The question was about derisking a little bit considering the massive run up. His analogies are good as far as electricity and the internet in general for bitcoin. I meant that to me they don't work as far as risk and investments for his public company and shareholders are concerned. I can say everyone uses apple phones but it would be hard to be all in apple forever at any price especially if it wasn't my own money. I know he did clarify he is holding long term so if he doesn't need any of that money for several years I guess it's probably fine.

Nothing against bitcoin here, it will probably go up and might go down some, then up again, otherwise I wouldn't have been buying it It's just an opinion on Michael as a whole, something about him makes him just makes me uneasy. He just seems like he is trying too hard and now raising more money just to buy bitcoin which he knows is already at a big premium. Doesn't seem like he is bringing any value other than just owning bitcoin. I get that a lot of people here are big fans and don't mean to disrespect those opinions.

That is def the best part the pure arrogance when being proved wrong over and over again.

It would make an amazing case study. Basically our own version of a incel.

Can someone explain to an old dumb guy how Celsius and BlockFi make their spread? They indicate that your coins get loaned out to institutions. What institutions exactly? Why would said institutions not buy crypto directly rather than borrow your crypto? Also does this stuff not violate the 'no keys, no coins' rule?

Saylor just hosted a virtual conference with 7000 attendees from 1000 corporations providing the playbook for adding bitcoin to treasury reserves. He's probably just front running an expected deluge of new entrants based on private conversations he had as it will take new companies 3-6 months to clear their regulatory hurdles.

Depending on which end of the logic spectrum you lie from common sense on one end to TS on the other, this is either a positive based on fundamentals or a ponzi wave. Either way - number go up.

Saylor regularly tweet quotes from famous people who died before bitcoin existed, followed by {their name} + “on bitcoin”.

The guy is a degenerate shill. But a more respectable shill than John “emd on tv” McAfee.

I love Saylor's message. He's normalizing putting BTC on a balance sheet. I don't think Tesla buys at this stage without him. My only complaints are: his use of leverage should give everybody pause for concern losing him credibility, and I don't like how he quotes past results of "200% yearly growth" as if that will continue into the future.

50.6 shits crazy

Question for you long-coiners. Is it just me, or is there a lot of big movement happening between 1-5am EST? Is that a known trend or is something driving that, or more coincidence lately? I've just been waking up to huge overnight movement more than a few times lately.

That also brings up the fact bitcoin is 24/7, and how that relates to people's lives. There's no closing bell or weekends, and that has to be accounted for and I'm curious how that is/will be addressed.

50.8 after post lol.

Hedge funds, market makers and banks that want to trade certain strategies without exposure to the price of bitcoin borrow bitcoin to trade it or short it. For example ‘the grayscale trade’: grayscale shares historically trade at a premium to nav, so a hedge fund enters a private placement at nav and shorts bitcoin to hedge then sells the shares in 6 months time hopefully at a premium and covers the short.
I think the ‘no keys, no coins’ rule is a bit outdated, for most people custody with a financial institution now presents considerably less risk than the procedural risk of self custody.

Annd fiddy one.

New podcast covering this exact topic for you:

https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/...ce-mark-yusko/

Something to take into consideration. Just because respectable companies or people get into Bitcoin doesn't automatically legitimize the underlying security. Bernie Madoff fooled many respectable people in society. Price alone doesn't prove anything. That being said, I think the whole thing with Wrapped Bitcoin and Dapps is pretty awesome. I really think this stuff is going to take off. I don't think it is impossible for Bitcoin to lose its market share in the future and for some other currency to take its place. In the meantime though, I'm feeling quite bullish. I believe people are starting to lose faith in the dollar given how much money is getting printed right now. It is insane.

Prices of things are going up in general. I bought my house 2 years ago for $165k and I got it refinanced for $187kish (close to minimum needed to eliminate PMI). The appraisal was waived. The lender said it would take 2 to 3 months because of how much volume they are getting. Some houses similar to mine are selling at over $200k right now. The stock market is going crazy for really no reason. PE ratios keep getting higher and higher. I know people that are making $300+ a week for over a year. I'm making $23 an hour ($26 adjusted for overtime) wiping a cloth around door handles to prevent COVID19. Apparently my job is "essential". This is the most money I've ever been making at a job and it is also some of the easiest work I've ever done.

All of the things in the above paragraph makes me think that the dollar is getting inflated to an extreme degree. Either that or everything else is in a bubble at once. I'm not an economist, but it seems like the entire world is trying to **** up the money supply by printing out more money while less value is being produced because people with normally lower paying jobs are getting paid slightly less to stay at home and do nothing (I don't blame them).

If Tooth decided to short, it may be wise to pick an exit strategy for when/if things go really high. Also, he seems to be the only bear in the thread which is very nice to have. People need to stop advocating for him to stop posting, because it is no fun when everybody agrees. We also don't know if his short is necessarily bad yet, because the price could plummet still. If he announces where he'll exit on the high end, it will add more credibility for the trade being good if it does end up falling below $44k.

That Saylor guy seemed a bit condescending to the Asian lady imo. She asked a few simple questions and he acted like he's this guy with all the answers. He acted like she was crazy for saying Bitcoin has cycles of going up and crashing. Why was he saying that bitcoin isn't volatile and boring, wtf is up with that. Bitcoin is super volatile. Also the stuff about not using numbers to analyze things makes no sense to me.

I’d bet up to 5k that btc would be 100k+ by end of 2021

The amount of money printing is absurd . It’s the best hedge against inflation atm

To add to this , there will be a ton of extra irs refund $ going out this year due to the fact that low income people can use 2019 income . So someone that did not work in 2020 collecting unemployment with 2 kids gets a 10k refund while someone that makes a 40k salary and pays taxes gets peanuts

Part of the reason I haven't sold right now is because I don't feel like there are many good assets to put it in. Everything is just so high. An alternative is margin lending tether. Really great returns on that right now.

People into cryptocurrencies are more likely to want to hold other crypto + people who aren't into cryptocurrencies are unaware of the returns = good investment for margin lending tether.

If you are serious I will bet you 5k on this if we can find someone to escrow.

i don't think you understand.

1) it has nothing to do with everyone agreeing. MeleaB put it very accurately:

2) he is also by far not the only bear, just the most vocal and stupid one. the most recent poster to present all the best btc bear cases has been two shae.

3) there is no way he actually shorted anything. he is a fake. i will send him $1000 (in btc, of course) if he can prove he actually made the trade. at least this way he won't have to wait for it to drop before he can finally own his first one.

I think it’s more charitable to attribute hyperbole to utterances of absolute certainty, this is an internet thread not a court of law - much amusement is gained by everyone when prophecies fail, let’s not discourage the (dodgy) prophets.

Already half the road done for 2021 ?

I understand how the spread is generated but I don't see how its a good idea for them to be paying interest in BTC and/or ETH. Why would they not want to pay this in USD (because surely as a blockchain company they believe in the growth in value of BTC/ETH)?

If you play around with some calculators and assume moderate rates of growth for BTC/ETH then these products become amazingly profitable over time. I get right now that everyone is making multiples of this in defi yield farming, but if blockfi is truly risk free its a mind boggling return over a 5-10 year timeframe. What are the risks that I am taking on in keeping my BTC there? They have insurance against hacks and keep their coins with Gemini so this seems incredibly small. I don't see how they ever go insolvent given their collateralisation of loans and how they seem to have got through March 2020. So are there any risks I should be thinking of? FWIW, I currently hold > 50% of my networth in BTC/ETH so I don't want to accept much risk of losing it given that I believe it will appreciate well on its own. But the key opportunity here is to be paid in BTC because it effectively compounds twice.

BTC hitting 50k is a good time to post some of my thoughts as an avid no-coiner and crypto skeptic. Maybe it's helpful when it comes to understanding what goes on in crypto bears' minds. Some thoughts:

1)I still think it's terrible as currency and can't work long term. First layer, settlement layer, it doesn't matter. I've notice many crypto bulls agree with this which was a surprise to me.

2)I still think there is a lot of pumps, straight scams (Tethers), manipulation etc. Once something big is discovered it will undermine trust and force regulators to act.

3)Most public crypto bulls are cringe worthy with their understanding of technology and monetary system. It's difficult to shake off an impression that everyone public in the space is a scammer or a moron. "Invest now or stay poor" sentiment only adds to that.
I am instantly skeptical of any person hyping it (Elon Musk, Cathie Wood as two recent examples).

4)I do think there is real value in it though. The real value is that you can go around regulation and transfer money for not only illegal activities (huge use case) but also internationally when the governments make it difficult on purpose. This going around regulation thing is something I severely underestimated until I came across it myself (someone in China could only pay in BTC for a small custom project).

I claimed in the past it's a pure speculation/Ponzi with maybe some drug trade mixed in. I now think the actual use case in 4) is quite important.
I think the reason we don't have cheap nearly instant wire transfers around the world is not technology but mainly regulation (cost of entry into the space is another reason). Things are improving with services like TransferWise but all those KYC, anti money laundering, and non-unified international laws get in the way.

It will be interesting to see what regulators do. There will be pressure from fintech companies to even the playing field so to speak. On the other hand for it to have effect you would need to coordinate at least 3 players (US/EU/China) and that doesn't sound like something likely to happen until BTC becomes even bigger than it is today.

I've never claimed it's doomed to crash (I hope!) although I thought it's very likely. I don't kick myself for missing it (certainly not as much as for missing SHOP run). I claimed it's a terrible currency and the tech behind is at most a curiosity interesting enough to seduce tech enthusiasts and I stand by that assessment.
My family members hold some BTC, I still tell them I would sell and they still hold so there is that. The reason I won't gamble on it is that it has a lot of uncertainty and in my mind there are better bets out there. Being forced to fill yet another tax form is another reason I won't touch it. I am not very confident about which direction it goes though.

Good post.
(3) for me is huge. The bulls are mostly droolers who have a demonstrably terrible understanding of everything, including bitcoin itself. When you're in a pets.com or chain letter type scheme though, which bitcoin is, being an early drooler is an asset. Look at GME, AMC, TLRY, TSLA, dozens of names where the early drooler gets the late drooler's money.

As part of (3), and like Tesla, their despair and lack of confidence when the price tanks indicates to me they don't have a clue and are basically "stock price bro" idiots. I, a strong bear, was the only person calling it a "strong buy" here at $250 after it crashed from Mt Gox. Same thing in Tesla; I was the only person calling it a buy at $190 pre split. Both of those I would have sold at 5x and +50% rather than at 200x and 20x, but you get the idea. There are few bitcoin bulls when things languish at lows when it was actually the best risk/reward. It's very telling and much like every fad in that sense rather than something enduring.

There's definitely real value in bitcoin as a medium of doing illegal and shady things. That was actually my base case argument at $250 and why it was a low risk, high return trade. The illegal economy though is maybe 2%-5% of the current value, the rest is pure speculation bubble.

And ultimately punter11235 I think all of this is simply long scale psychology. When the public at large don't want for a money for a long time (and are very comfortable with spare cash and no fears), they speculate on whatever the current fad/shiny thing is and build up large bubbles. They also start buying into nonsense ideas and movements.

Late 1920s: the "Roaring 20s": Belief in the new age of man, the final end of war, flying cars and (mechanical) robots soon, etc. Enormous retail bubble (trillions in today's money)

1990s: A period of massive prosperity ended with a multi trillion dollar retail bubble on the crappiest of internet names (trillions)

2008: The housing bubble (trillions)

2020: The bitcoin and ultra crappy stocks bubble (trillions).

So to me this looks like every other bubble driven by comfort psychology. The Internet, social media and easy retail investing has likely helped a lot, but it's not needed; see all the other bubbles.

Perhaps (100 years after the 1920s) we finally are in a new age of prosperity for mankind that they thought was happening then, but I don't believe it. Debt wouldn't increasing like crazy worldwide if that were true.

Why do you think so? I feel it might be much bigger than that but I don't know how to even start assessing it. The thing is a lot of people need it and if it's way more expensive they will still need it just as much until better options appear. In the pandemic even carrying cash in a suitcase became more difficult than it used to be though so BTC or other crypto currencies may be the only option for quite a long time.