Do you think cryptocurrencies are the future?

[FordGT90Concept]

Because a month is a huge difference from a year. Specifically, I want to know what caused those clear spikes. Having a time frame would be able to establish the cause of them.

 

[Papahyooie]

Because a month is a huge difference from a year. Specifically, I want to know what caused those clear spikes. Having a time frame would be able to establish the cause of them.

I gave you the time frame. The past month.

Over the year:

You'll see there are sharp drops, and of course you're going to say "See you lost money!" Which is sort of why I chose the month to month rather than the year, because I haven't withdrawn anything over the month.

The sharp drops are me withdrawing to pay bills and/or to avoid obvious impending drops in value, and/or to invest in more mining gear. Other, smaller drops, are either me withdrawing smaller amounts to avoid drops but still leaving most of it in to hedge my bet, or legitimate bad calls where I didn't jump ship early enough and had to weather the storm.

The only times I invested new cash is the first two spikes (and not all of that was new cash, the graph simply begins where I started using this particular service.)

Every other upward spike is either mining profits or me reinjecting cash that I had gained from selling out, or switching currencies. Another detail that might help you understand, is that graph also takes into account USD that I have on hand to invest. USD is treated as just another currency, so that is why my graph does not follow the graph of valuation of bitcoin. If I sell bitcoin, my USD valuation stays the same, so you see no dip. Then when I reinvest, and it goes up, you see the spike.

Plus, you also have to take into account the fact that I have cashed out (and spent, never reinvested) more than 1000% what I have invested in cash USD.

The market can do what it wants, for all I care. Dips and spikes just make me more money.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Oh, I'm blind about the month thing...

You're mostly talking about your personal up trend but you're also actively mining. You'd have to weigh your up trend against the cost of electricity, labor, as well as estimate hardware wear and tear and I think that the up trend wouldn't be so up (flat or down even) post bubble burst. Still in black ink, I'm sure, but market isn't growing.

Attrition will eventually make mining non-profitable except for those that can hugely decrease costs (e.g. hydropower) and increase productivity (e.g. ASIC farms). They'll eventually carry the network and it's shrinking user base and sustain mostly through transaction fees.

 

[Papahyooie]

Oh, I'm blind about the month thing...

You're mostly talking about your personal up trend but you're also actively mining. You'd have to weigh your up trend against the cost of electricity, labor, as well as estimate hardware wear and tear and I think that the up trend wouldn't be so up (flat or down even) post bubble burst.

Of course I'm talking about my own personal valuation. That's my point... It's the only thing that matters, when it comes down to it. As long as there is money to be made, crypto will survive. And if you want to take a more nihilistic stand... take the money while you can. It's foolish to naysay while others are making money.

Mining has actually netted me less profit than playing the market. That being said, it's a fair point that I have to weigh that against cost. Add up cost of electricity and wear and tear (I have ROI'd all of my mining investments already, and haven't lost a card yet because I sacrifice a little bit of hashing speed to keep my cards happy) and I make nearly 75% profit on the mining. That's insane for ANY investment, not to even speak of being "in black ink."

Your claim about attrition, while true in the claim that attrition will cause the issues you say it will, is simply based on misinformation. The crypto userbase is growing, not shrinking.

Regardless of all this, your claim that crypto is flat, if true, is a good thing. That means we're reaching stability, and leaving the boom/bust cycle. Stability leads to stable growth. At that point, I'll make less on playing the market, and more on mining. I'm ok with that, as mining is a far more stable income source.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Regardless of all this, your claim that crypto is flat, if true, is a good thing. That means we're reaching stability, and leaving the boom/bust cycle. Stability leads to stable growth. At that point, I'll make less on playing the market, and more on mining. I'm ok with that, as mining is a far more stable income source.

I doubt that is the case, again, because the market is so small. It only takes one power play to send it all spiraling out of control again. My hypothetical was based on the assumption there were no more power plays.

 

[Papahyooie]

Lol ok... so now you're saying that a "power play" will send it spiraling out of control again. The only "power play" there is in crypto, is buying a large amount to drive up the price, then selling it, and bank on the mania. Which is totally true, I give you that. But that just supports my conclusion that there is money to be made, and I'll go ahead and make it while you sit here naysaying.

So which is it? Is crypto essentially flat, and therefore dead, or is crypto volatile and unstable, and therefore dead.... You can't have it both ways.

 

[R-T-B]

Looks more or less like a flat line to me.
View attachment 101901
What happened at the end of last year was a bubble forming and bursting. What we see now is the new normal. I quote myself:

Your X axis is horribly selected. Crypto has been around (and thus, growing) far more than a year.

 

[Space Lynx]

I haven't checked on crypto prices in over 3-4 months, feels great to not be apart of this world anymore. I feel bad now for low baller stock brokers on wall street ( not the big dawgs), I sort of understand now how it can kind of consume your entire life trying to keep up with it to maximize profits.

Regardless, glad I majored in Philosophy instead of Finance. I may never make much money, but the intellectual life is more than enough for me ~ long live Marcus Aurelius!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So which is it? Is crypto essentially flat, and therefore dead, or is crypto volatile and unstable, and therefore dead.... You can't have it both ways.

Declining for the foreseeable future but can't rule out the possibility of another round of manipulation. There may be another bubble in the future but it won't be as big. Most people are familiar enough with the concept of cryptocurrencies to know the risks. Ignorance drove the dot-com bubble and the cryptocurrency bubble. In both cases, there was a specific example after the fact to point to and say, "this has happened before." It tampers expectations greatly.

Your X axis is horribly selected. Crypto has been around (and thus, growing) far more than a year.

So was the dot-com industry. Bubbles form when the public at large get ensnared in it. That's exactly what happened to cryptocurrencies. You could argue that dot-com bubble and burst took years rather than months. I would retort that extreme volatility isn't in NASDAQ's nature like cryptocurrencies. Money tends to move between shares rather than into and out of the market entirely like cryptocurrencies.

 

[Papahyooie]

Declining for the foreseeable future but can't rule out the possibility of another round of manipulation. There may be another bubble in the future but it won't be as big. Most people are familiar enough with the concept of cryptocurrencies to know the risks. Ignorance drove the dot-com bubble and the cryptocurrency bubble. In both cases, there was a specific example after the fact to point to and say, "this has happened before." It tampers expectations greatly.

"Declining for the foreseeable future" is not supported by any mathematical calculation whatsoever, that takes in appropriate scope. Today, it's up nearly 3%. For the week, it's up nearly 2%. It's down over the month, but as long as you're playing the market, you can still make a profit due to the rises and falls, AND moreover, it's up hundreds of percent for the hodlers.
So nothing can ever be good about crypto no matter what it is, and nothing will ever convince you of it, ever. Gotcha.

 

[R-T-B]

Declining for the foreseeable future

So you seem to say.

However you are hardly an unbiased individual, given your proclivity to latch onto to all the negative press that suits your opinion and ignore anything positive.

I think I can conclude this with reasonable certainty, unlike your claim:

Neither of us have any idea what the future holds.

So nothing can ever be good about crypto no matter what it is, and nothing will ever convince you of it, ever. Gotcha.

Pretty much. In his mind positive news seems to be "market manipulation" and negative news the death toll for crypto.

I couldn't spin it harder if I tried. I got to give him kudos.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

However you are hardly an unbiased individual, given your proclivity to latch onto to all the negative press that suits your opinion and ignore anything positive.

Hyperledger is gaining traction (IBM, Intel, etc. are supporting the initiative) but that's blockchain tech, not cryptocurrency (designed as an alternative to, in fact).

 

[R-T-B]

Hyperledger is gaining traction (IBM, Intel, etc. are supporting the initiative) but that's blockchain tech, not cryptocurrency (designed as an alternative to, in fact).

I'm not sure I agree with your definition of what is and isn't a cryptocurrency. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Hyperledger's goal is to not be a currency at all; it's to create a P2P trust network. Have a read. When you take away the enormous cost of the Proof-of-Work model, there's really no need for users to profit from the network itself. The network replaces financial and logistics software so it ends up costing less.

While most other blockchain projects focus on cryptocurrencies and tokens, the projects around Hyperledger demonstrate a strong potential to build the backbone of non-monetary, high scaling industrial applications of blockchain technology.

 

[moproblems99]

Hyperledger's goal is to not be a currency at all

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that based on Stellar?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

No, it's based on IBM Blockchain (modular) and Intel Sawtooth Lake (Proof of Elapsed Time). The former supports currencies but doesn't require it.

 

[Valantar]

Cryptocurrencies are nothing more than the latest branch on the "magical money-making inventions (not at all gambling, no sir, not at all)" tree on which the financial world lives. They're entirely valued through people's belief in their value, and when the people in question are fundamentally greedy and frightened bankers, it's all bound to go tumbling precipitously down once a significant enough number of them get scared.

Keep the FOMO at bay, you're not losing anything on not "investing" (read: gambling) your money on this utterly useless (seriously, literally useless) and massively wasteful and polluting circle jerk.

 

[yotano211]

Cryptocurrencies are nothing more than the latest branch on the "magical money-making inventions (not at all gambling, no sir, not at all)" tree on which the financial world lives. They're entirely valued through people's belief in their value, and when the people in question are fundamentally greedy and frightened bankers, it's all bound to go tumbling precipitously down once a significant enough number of them get scared.

Keep the FOMO at bay, you're not losing anything on not "investing" (read: gambling) your money on this utterly useless (seriously, literally useless) and massively wasteful and polluting circle jerk.

You're a little to late to the Cryptocurrency bashing party.

 

[R0H1T]

Lol ok... so now you're saying that a "power play" will send it spiraling out of control again. The only "power play" there is in crypto, is buying a large amount to drive up the price, then selling it, and bank on the mania. Which is totally true, I give you that. But that just supports my conclusion that there is money to be made, and I'll go ahead and make it while you sit here naysaying.

So which is it? Is crypto essentially flat, and therefore dead, or is crypto volatile and unstable, and therefore dead.... You can't have it both ways.

Tbf that isn't the only way, large scale hacking theft or fake news are also some of the other ways crypto currencies can be manipulated. Not saying this doesn't happen to other asset classes but the freefall is arguably much worse in crypto.

 

[moproblems99]

No, it's based on IBM Blockchain (modular) and Intel Sawtooth Lake (Proof of Elapsed Time). The former supports currencies but doesn't require it.

I am pretty sure that IBM and Intel are backing Stellar.

http://fortune.com/2017/10/16/ibm-blockchain-stellar/

 

[R-T-B]

Cryptocurrencies are nothing more than the latest branch on the "magical money-making inventions (not at all gambling, no sir, not at all)" tree on which the financial world lives. They're entirely valued through people's belief in their value, and when the people in question are fundamentally greedy and frightened bankers, it's all bound to go tumbling precipitously down once a significant enough number of them get scared.

Keep the FOMO at bay, you're not losing anything on not "investing" (read: gambling) your money on this utterly useless (seriously, literally useless) and massively wasteful and polluting circle jerk.

Gambling depends on dumb luck to win.

Crypto is not comparable that way. If you do your research in crypto, the odds are in your favor to win. Try "researching" a slot maching or RNG lootbox... yeah, not going to happen, and probably will get you kicked out of the Casino.

As said, you are very late to the crypto bashing party. The fact that your comment has upvotes shows how frothing at the mouth can be quite endearing to people who hate something, however.

 

[Komshija]

Yes, there is certainly a massive hype about mining in the last 1,5 years. Many people are now selling their expensive hardware because they didn't achieve the expected results or, in most cases, didn't even return the investment. However, some people managed to earn something and return the investment, but their main "mining" hardware is also based on at least 12 GPU's. There is also a fair portion of luck, because if they significantly change the complexity for mining certain cryptocurrency, you are in trouble.

I didn't find the idea appealing because I calculated the hardware I need is way too expensive for my pocket: 2 x G4600, 16 GB DDR4 RAM (2x8 GB), 2 x Z170 MOBO with 7 PCI-e each, 14 x RX 480 or 580 8GB, 2 x cheapest 500 GB HDD 7200, 2 x 1200 W (at least) PSU 80 Plus Gold or better plus other neccessary stuff. Since there's no guarantee that I will return my investment in less than 18 months, I gave up the idea. It was a big gamble and I'm nowhere near being rich nor an upper-middle class person. So... yeah...

 

[hat]

My investment was small (two 1070s, cost around $850 I think). Since I started maybe about 11 months ago, I'm sure I've at least recovered that much...

Even as things as they are now I'd like to expand. I actually thought of moving both my 1070s to my Plex server once I can upgrade my main machine. In the meantime, I can rock my trusty old HD5870, until I can pop something more capable in, like a GTX1060 or whatever the next gen equivalent is.

One advantage to waiting for my crypto stash to grow enough until I'm able to buy new parts is time. I've got plenty of time to plan how I want to do this. In fact, I just learned recently that Plex doesn't support GPU encoding unless you have Plex Pass... so that kinda throws a monkey wrench into things.

 

[Valantar]

Gambling depends on dumb luck to win.

Crypto is not comparable that way. If you do your research in crypto, the odds are in your favor to win. Try "researching" a slot maching or RNG lootbox... yeah, not going to happen, and probably will get you kicked out of the Casino.

As said, you are very late to the crypto bashing party. The fact that your comment has upvotes shows how frothing at the mouth can be quite endearing to people who hate something, however.

Sorry, but just as with any type of financial investment, in the end it's all gambling. Sure, research can mitigate risk to a certain extent, but in the end there's no difference between betting on red at a craps table, investing in stock, or buying crypto - in each case the outcome is decided by forces entirely outside of your control. As such, it's gambling, plain and simple. Learning to analyze the patterns and systems that endure in various forms of gambling to win doesn't make it any less gambling, just higher effort and (slightly) lower risk. Buying lottery tickets is still gambling even if you buy every single possible combination of numbers.

Most people today seem to be in the "crypto is only viable for investment, not mining" boat, which makes crypto for all intents and purposes no different whatsoever than buying stock or bonds or any other item with a mutually agreed-upon value. And, again, considering that this immediately means the "market" will be controlled by risk-averse, greedy, gambling addicted financiers (seriously, you know of shorting and all the other actual, indisputable bets they rely on to make money, right?), which again means that you have zero control. Again: this is gambling.

Oh, and then there are the bazillion scams out there, from fraudulent ICOs to exchanges shutting down and all that jazz. Alongside this you have the fact that most of the crypto community is ideologically tilted agianst regulation and oversight, which means scams, theft and bluffs are an intrinsic part of the game, that apparently has to be accepted.


As for my comment, it was mostly pointing towards crypto proponents evangelizing "Blockchain is the future" without showing a single actually useful example of blockchain tech outside of cryptocurrency - at least from what I've seen. There are potential use cases, but given that people can barely agree on what "blockchain" even means, the whole discussion smacks of snake oil. If we agree that a distributed ledger system is a necessity for something to be blockchain-related, then we have to exclude a lot of "blockchain based" tech that doesn't have that. And if it doesn't then it's not really any different from just using encryption for whatever, which has been done for decades - and thus, relating it to cryptocurrency really only serves as a rhetorical tactic to make cryptocurrency look good. Then, of course, there are a lot of situations where a distributed ledger won't be feasible for various reasons - data security, privacy, countering industrial espionage, and the cost of maintaining a distributed network of nodes to keep the ledgers running, to mention a few. The main argument for distributed ledger tech is "security through transparency", which would give most companies and governmets the heebie jeebies from a mile off. I'm all for transparency in business, but it's not realistic in a traditional capitalist system, especially in a decentralized and voluntary system. And the whole point of maintaining a distributed ledger system collapses if access to the ledger is limited. Sure, it'll make it somewhat more difficult to screw with the ledger than if there was a single copy in one place, but that's already standard operating procedure pretty much anywhere: keep your records in multiple places and compare them to screen for errors and fraud. Adding a requirement that entries be cryptographically signed doesn't really bring much new to the table.

I'm not "foaming at the mouth". If you see reasonable skepticism towards a largely untested tech that has yet to show any real potential outside of grandiose on-paper ideas or money games as "foaming at the mouth", you really ought to take a hard look at your own beliefs.

 

[trog100]

Gambling depends on dumb luck to win.

Crypto is not comparable that way. If you do your research in crypto, the odds are in your favor to win. Try "researching" a slot maching or RNG lootbox... yeah, not going to happen, and probably will get you kicked out of the Casino.

As said, you are very late to the crypto bashing party. The fact that your comment has upvotes shows how frothing at the mouth can be quite endearing to people who hate something, however.

its an easy way to acquire cypto "status" as well.. he he

as for it being a gamble.. i own crypto but can honestly say never in my life have i bought a lottery ticket..

for me its more a store of value.. fiat money sat in the bank for sure isnt.. i own some gold.. some silver and some crypto i do not long term trust fiat money sat in the bank as a store of value.. at the press of a button "they" could take the lot off you or at least a big chunk of it and at some time in the not so far future they probably will..

trog