Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency
Dave Portnoy, the online sports celebrity founder of Barstool Sports, might be quitting cryptocurrency trading after buying bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies little more than a week ago, according to atweetpublished Friday afternoon.
Portnoy led his army of day traders into the cryptocurrency world after Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, explained bitcoin to him on Aug. 13.
Besides leading to a sizable bitcoin purchase, Portnoy’s meeting with the Winklevoss brothers also resulted in a $50,000 purchase of chainlink (LINK).
As of Friday, and after losing $25,000, however, Portnoy told his Twitter followers, “I currently own zero bitcoins.”
The bellwether cryptocurrency actually gained more than 7% in the days following Portnoy’s broadcasted purchase. At last check, BTC is still up 1% from the daily open on the day of Portnoy’s meeting.
LINK, however, dumped 30% since Portnoy signaled his bullishness for the coin, tweeting, “LINK to the moon.”
Another alternative cryptocurrency, orchid (OXT), also dropped 28% since Portnoy tweeted about his position.
Trading cryptocurrency just isn’t easy, explained Anil Lulla, former analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. “The market is a bit more sophisticated than it was in 2017. You've seen a shift where capital has been flowing to projects with some fundamentals instead of just good marketing and buzzwords.”
Dismissing his losses, Portnoy responded to a fake Tyler Winklevoss account that expressed disappointment in the celebrity trader’s decision to sell LINK by saying, “I make six figures a day like clockwork in the real stock market. No need to sit around losing money waiting for Elon [Musk] to mine gold from outer space.”
The possibility of mining gold on asteroids was a value proposition for investing in BTC pitched to Portnoy by the Winklevoss twins.
"Having a long-term fundamental view helps deal with the short-term volatility," said Ryan Watkins, bitcoin analyst at Messari and former investment banking analyst at Moelis & Co., referring to trading cryptocurrencies in a private message with CoinDesk.
Because everyone looks like a genius in a bull market, though, Lulla said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Portnoy eventually “have some fun and post some headline-grabbing gains.”
Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency
Dave Portnoy, the online sports celebrity founder of Barstool Sports, might be quitting cryptocurrency trading after buying bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies little more than a week ago, according to atweetpublished Friday afternoon.
Portnoy led his army of day traders into the cryptocurrency world after Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, explained bitcoin to him on Aug. 13.
Besides leading to a sizable bitcoin purchase, Portnoy’s meeting with the Winklevoss brothers also resulted in a $50,000 purchase of chainlink (LINK).
As of Friday, and after losing $25,000, however, Portnoy told his Twitter followers, “I currently own zero bitcoins.”
The bellwether cryptocurrency actually gained more than 7% in the days following Portnoy’s broadcasted purchase. At last check, BTC is still up 1% from the daily open on the day of Portnoy’s meeting.
LINK, however, dumped 30% since Portnoy signaled his bullishness for the coin, tweeting, “LINK to the moon.”
Another alternative cryptocurrency, orchid (OXT), also dropped 28% since Portnoy tweeted about his position.
Trading cryptocurrency just isn’t easy, explained Anil Lulla, former analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. “The market is a bit more sophisticated than it was in 2017. You've seen a shift where capital has been flowing to projects with some fundamentals instead of just good marketing and buzzwords.”
Dismissing his losses, Portnoy responded to a fake Tyler Winklevoss account that expressed disappointment in the celebrity trader’s decision to sell LINK by saying, “I make six figures a day like clockwork in the real stock market. No need to sit around losing money waiting for Elon [Musk] to mine gold from outer space.”
The possibility of mining gold on asteroids was a value proposition for investing in BTC pitched to Portnoy by the Winklevoss twins.
"Having a long-term fundamental view helps deal with the short-term volatility," said Ryan Watkins, bitcoin analyst at Messari and former investment banking analyst at Moelis & Co., referring to trading cryptocurrencies in a private message with CoinDesk.
Because everyone looks like a genius in a bull market, though, Lulla said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Portnoy eventually “have some fun and post some headline-grabbing gains.”
Note: Ryan Wilday and I just co-wrote this crypto article, and we thought you may find it interesting. Recently, the Winklevoss twins (who founded the Gemini crypto exchange) coined Bitcoin as ‘Gold 2.0.’ To support their perspective, they cited Bitcoin’s scarcity, its fungibility and its portability as meeting or exceeding that of the yellow metal. Greyscale Investments, the company that has brought crypto based trusts to the US OTC market, recently ran ads urging investors to drop gold as a relic of the past in favor of cryptocurrency, which is ‘secure’, borderless, and in their direct words, ‘actually has utility’. It seems that there are more and more comparisons between Bitcoin and gold, but is one better to hold more so than the other? Well, to be honest, each has a different ultimate purpose for which each is better suited. With gold and crypto starting to launch on their next bull run, we thought it would be fun to explore these questions. At the end of the day, we find each asset worth owning. And, for the libertarian minded, both assets provide “insurance” from inflationary fiat and the centralized banking system. Yet, each asset has their die-hard investors who view each asset as “the” asset to own, while they simultaneously look down at the other camp. For example, ‘gold bug’s’ such as Peter Schiff decry Bitcoin as ‘not viable as money’, ‘not a store of value’, and ‘fool’s gold’. And, Bitcoin fans simply consider gold a cumbersome hunk of metal with a value based on tradition rather than utility. As far as we are concerned, each camp has a point, which is why we feel that one should diversify into both asset classes for the same types of protections. You see, gold and bitcoin share values which are sought after by both groups of investors: separation from the centralized financial system, scarcity, security, portability, and fungibility. However, whereas Bitcoin may better serve investors with certain of these benefits, gold will serve investors better with others. Separation from the System In regards to separation from the centralized finance system of the world, Bitcoin and Gold are comparable. Both assets allow the holder to remain in control of their holdings, effectively becoming the bank for themselves. In that regard, holding either asset removes counterparty risk. Moreover, both allow for exchange between parties without intermediaries. And, finally, both are immune from the inflationary efforts of central banks. Scarcity All the gold ever mined is estimated at 190,000 tonnes and there is expected to be 54,000 tonnes in the ground. The current supply of Bitcoin is approaching 18 million and will never exceed 21 million. Furthermore, untold numbers of bitcoin are lost due to misplaced keys. Therefore, it is quite clear that both assets are scarce and finite, though one could certainly argue that Bitcoin is more so. Security The holders of both assets need to pay attention to security. For the gold holder, of course, security involves keeping gold away from prying hands. However, storage does become an issue the larger the holding, and involves additional costs. So, clearly, this is certainly one of the drawbacks of holding gold. Yet, theft of cryptocurrency has been one of the biggest deterrents from adoption of crypto as a common asset class. Yet, with appropriate cyber security protections, one can keep their crypto secure. Given that it is not held in a physical location, there are no additional costs of storage. Moreover, as long as one doesn’t expose how they maintain their private keys, one is unlikely to experience a physical robbery attempt. (We created a quick document on crypto security here). However, the Achilles heel of Bitcoin is that it requires the internet and electric grids to run properly. Should electricity become compromised for whatever the reason, I think it would be clear to understand how gold would become the more desirable of the two assets in this event. Portability I don’t think there is much of a question that Bitcoin wins hands down with respect to portability. Bitcoin is weightless and gold is over 19 grams per cubic centimeter. This is why so many Venezuelans reportedly ran to Bitcon to take capital out of the country. Doing so with gold is nearly impossible during such times of crisis. Fungibility Bitcoin and Gold are both fungible. However, Bitcoin is much more easily divided into smaller units down to 8 decimal places. At current price, one could theoretically exchange Bitcoin worth 1 /100 of a cent. Try doing that with gold. Since units of gold generally need to be rated for investment level purity, it is quite hard to exchange less than a 1/10th ounce of gold, or roughly $140 at today’s price. Conclusion Perhaps gold and crypto investors can find some common ground, as they each have similar benefits. The benefits that have traditionally led gold investors to hoard the yellow metal are not too different from those driving today’s Bitcoin buyers. Nonetheless, as we’ve shared, both are expected to embark on their next bull run. And, a disadvantage to owning one asset is often an advantage of owning other. Therefore, we believe both deserve a place in your portfolio for at least insurance purposes.
Well gee, this blew up. Bitcoin should not be treated as an investment, it should be recognized as a speculative negative-sum game. The Bitcoin system currently consumes an estimated 3.6 billion dollar worth of electricity on an annualized basis, just to update the ledger that contains a record of everyone's transactions. This enormous consumption of electricity is indirectly paid for by people who invest their savings in Bitcoin, as a consequence, money is continually "leaking" from the system. As a Bitcoin investor, you're paying for Chinese businesses to waste electricity by solving an abstract math problem that is designed to get continually more difficult. Besides ensuring that many people lose vast sums of money while a small minority of early adapters is enriched, Bitcoin causes tremendous ecological damage in an era when we should be focusing as a society on reducing our carbon emissions. The Bitcoin developers responsible for updating the protocol appear to have no genuine intention to introduce code changes that reduce the ecological damage caused by Bitcoin mining, so my suggestion has to be to sell your Bitcoins, which indirectly has the effect of reducing the ecological damage caused by Bitcoin mining. Theft and loss of coins are also enormous problems affecting Bitcoin, so although it is theoretically possible to store your coins in a safe manner, history has shown that a lot of people will simply lose their coins, further illustrating why Bitcoin is not a good investment option. The other cryptocurrencies share most of Bitcoin's flaws (resource waste, no protection against theft or loss, vulnerable to market manipulation, etc), but most importantly, what sets cryptocurrencies apart from proper investments is that these coins don't produce anything. If you invest in a company, that company can use the money to deliver more products. If you buy, silver, gold, bitcoin or beanie babies, you're hoping someone else will come along one day and pay more money for it. History has shown that people who invest money in the stock market will generally end up witnessing much higher returns than people who buy gold. With that said, I hope this story has entertained you and helped you recognize some of the problems our society would face if we ever witnessed widespread adaption of Bitcoin or similar digital currencies. I am sending this message from the year 2025. Things are looking bleak here, and some of you will carry blood on your hands. If you don't believe me, please move on, as I have no way of proving to you I'm really who I claim to be. I don't want to waste any of your time, so I'm merely going to explain what happened. On average, every year so far, the value of Bitcoin has increased by about a factor ten. From 0.1 dollar in 2010, to 1 dollar in 2011, to 10 dollar in 2012, to 100 dollar in 2013. From now on, there's a slight slowdown, as the value increased by a factor ten every two years, to 1,000 dollar in 2015, to 10,000 in 2017, 100,000 in 2019, and 1,000,000 in 2021. From here onwards, there's no good way of expressing its value in dollars, as the dollar is no longer used, nor is any central bank issued currency for that matter. There are two main forms of wealth in today's world. Land and cryptocurrency. There are just over 19 million Bitcoin known to be used in the world today, as well as a few hundred thousand that were permanently lost, and we're still dealing with a population of just over 7 billion people today. On average, this means the average person owns just under 0.003 bitcoin. However, due to the unequal distribution of wealth in my world, the mean person owns just 0.001 bitcoin. That's right, most of you reading this today are rich. I personally live next to an annoying young man who logged into his old Reddit account two years ago and discovered that he received a tip of 0.01 Bitcoin back in 2013 for calling someone a "faggot" when he was a 16 year old boy. Upon making this discovery he bought an airline ticket, left his house without telling anyone anything and went to a Citadel. "What is a Citadel?" you might wonder. Well, by the time Bitcoin became worth 1,000 dollar, services began to emerge for the "Bitcoin rich" to protect themselves as well as their wealth. It started with expensive safes, then began to include bodyguards, and today, "earlies" (our term for early adapters), as well as those rich whose wealth survived the "transition" live in isolated gated cities called Citadels, where most work is automated. Most such Citadels are born out of the fortification used to protect places where Bitcoin mining machines are located. The company known as ASICminer to you is known to me as a city where Mr. Friedman rules as a king. In my world, soon to be your world, most governments no longer exist, as Bitcoin transactions are done anonymously and thus most governments can enforce no taxation on their citizens. Most of the success of Bitcoin is due to the fact that Bitcoin turned out to be an effective method to hide your wealth from the government. Whereas people entering "rogue states" like Luxemberg, Monaco and Liechtenstein were followed by unmanned drones to ensure that governments know who is hiding wealth, no such option was available to stop people from hiding their money in Bitcoin. Governments tried to stay relevant in my society by buying Bitcoin, which just made the problem worse, by increasing the value of Bitcoin. Governments did so in secret of course, but my generation's "Snowdens" are in fact greedy government employees who transferred Bitcoin to their own private account, and escaped to anarchic places where no questions are asked as long as you can cough up some money. The four institutions with the largest still accessible Bitcoin balance are believed to be as following: -ASICminer - 50,000 Bitcoin -The IMF's "currency stabilization fund" - 70,000 Bitcoin -Government of Saudi Arabia - 110,000 Bitcoin -The North Korean government - 180,000 Bitcoin Economic growth today is about -2% per year. Why is this? If you own more than 0.01 Bitcoin, chances are you don't do anything with your money. There is no inflation, and thus no incentive to invest your money. Just like the medieval ages had no significant economic growth, as wealth was measured in gold, our society has no economic growth either, as people know their 0.01 Bitcoin will be enough to last them a lifetime. The fact that there are still new Bitcoin released is what prevents our world from collapse so far it seems, but people fear that the decline in inflation that will occur during the next block halving may further wreck our economy. What happened to the Winklevoss twins? The Winklevoss twins were among the first to die. After seeing the enormous damage done to the fabric of society, terrorist movements emerged that sought to hunt down and murder anyone known to have a large balance of Bitcoin, or believed to be responsible in any way for the development of cryptocurrency. Ironically, these terrorist movements use Bitcoin to anonymously fund their operations. Most people who own any significant amount of Bitcoin no longer speak to their families and lost their friends, because they had to change their identities. There have been also been a few suicides of people who could not handle the guilt after seeing what happened to the bag-holders, the type of skeptical people who continued to believe it would eventually collapse, even after hearing the rumors of governments buying Bitcoin. Many people were taken hostage, and thus, it is suspected that 25% percent of "Bitcoin rich" actually physically tortured someone to get him to spill his password. Why didn't we abandon Bitcoin, and move to another system? Well, we tried of course. We tried to step over to an inflationary cryptocurrency, but nobody with an IQ above 70 was willing to step up first and volunteer. After all, why would you voluntarily invest a lot of your money into a currency where you know your wealth will continually decline? The thing that made Bitcoin so dangerous to society was also what made it so successful. Bitcoin allows us to give into our greed. In Africa, surveys show that an estimated 70% of people believe that Bitcoin was invented by the devil himself. There's a reason for this. It's a very sensitive issue that today is generally referred to as "the tragedy". The African Union had ambitious plans to help its citizens be ready to step over to Bitcoin. Governments gave their own citizens cell phones for free, tied to their government ID, and thus government sought to integrate Bitcoin into their economy. All went well, until "the tragedy" that is. A criminal organization, believed to be located in Russia, exploited a hardware fault in the government issued cell phones. It's believed that the entire continent of Africa lost an estimated 60% of its wealth in a period of 48 hours. What followed was a period of chaos and civil war, until the Saudi Arabian and North Korean governments, two of the world's major superpowers due to their authoritarian political system's unique ability to adapt to the "Bitcoin challenge", divided most African land between themselves and were praised as heroes by the local African population for it. You might wonder, what is our plan now? It's clear that the current situation can not be sustained, without ending in a nuclear holocaust. I am part of an underground network, who seek to launch a coordinated attack against the very infrastructure of the Internet itself. We have at our disposal about 20 nuclear submarines, which we will use to cut all underwater cables between different continents. After this has been successfully achieved, we will launch a simultaneous nuclear pulse attack on every densely population area of the world. We believe that the resulting chaos will allow the world's population to rise up in revolt, and destroy as many computers out there as possible, until we reach the point where Bitcoin loses any relevance. Of course, this outcome will likely lead to billions of deaths. This is a price we are forced to pay, to avoid the eternal enslavement of humanity to a tiny elite. This is also the reason we contacted you. It doesn't have to be like this. You do not have to share our fate. I don't know how, but you must find a way to destroy this godforsaken project in its infancy. I know this is a difficult thing to ask of you. You believed you were helping the world by eliminating the central banking cartel that governs your economies. However, I have seen where it ends. More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgrUEHe7CZY&t=3s
I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing.
I am sending this message from the year 2025. Things are looking bleak here, and some of you will carry blood on your hands. If you don't believe me, please move on, as I have no way of proving to you I'm really who I claim to be. I don't want to waste any of your time, so I'm merely going to explain what happened. On average, every year so far, the value of Bitcoin has increased by about a factor ten. From 0.1 dollar in 2010, to 1 dollar in 2011, to 10 dollar in 2012, to 100 dollar in 2013. From now on, there's a slight slowdown, as the value increased by a factor ten every two years, to 1,000 dollar in 2015, to 10,000 in 2017, 100,000 in 2019, and 1,000,000 in 2021. From here onwards, there's no good way of expressing its value in dollars, as the dollar is no longer used, nor is any central bank issued currency for that matter. There are two main forms of wealth in today's world. Land and cryptocurrency. There are just over 19 million Bitcoin known to be used in the world today, as well as a few hundred thousand that were permanently lost, and we're still dealing with a population of just over 7 billion people today. On average, this means the average person owns just under 0.003 bitcoin. However, due to the unequal distribution of wealth in my world, the mean person owns just 0.001 bitcoin. That's right, most of you reading this today are rich. I personally live next to an annoying young man who logged into his old Reddit account two years ago and discovered that he received a tip of 0.01 Bitcoin back in 2013 for calling someone a "faggot" when he was a 16 year old boy. Upon making this discovery he bought an airline ticket, left his house without telling anyone anything and went to a Citadel. "What is a Citadel?" you might wonder. Well, by the time Bitcoin became worth 1,000 dollar, services began to emerge for the "Bitcoin rich" to protect themselves as well as their wealth. It started with expensive safes, then began to include bodyguards, and today, "earlies" (our term for early adapters), as well as those rich whose wealth survived the "transition" live in isolated gated cities called Citadels, where most work is automated. Most such Citadels are born out of the fortification used to protect places where Bitcoin mining machines are located. The company known as ASICminer to you is known to me as a city where Mr. Friedman rules as a king. In my world, soon to be your world, most governments no longer exist, as Bitcoin transactions are done anonymously and thus most governments can enforce no taxation on their citizens. Most of the success of Bitcoin is due to the fact that Bitcoin turned out to be an effective method to hide your wealth from the government. Whereas people entering "rogue states" like Luxemberg, Monaco and Liechtenstein were followed by unmanned drones to ensure that governments know who is hiding wealth, no such option was available to stop people from hiding their money in Bitcoin. Governments tried to stay relevant in my society by buying Bitcoin, which just made the problem worse, by increasing the value of Bitcoin. Governments did so in secret of course, but my generation's "Snowdens" are in fact greedy government employees who transferred Bitcoin to their own private account, and escaped to anarchic places where no questions are asked as long as you can cough up some money. The four institutions with the largest still accessible Bitcoin balance are believed to be as following: -ASICminer - 50,000 Bitcoin -The IMF's "currency stabilization fund" - 70,000 Bitcoin -Government of Saudi Arabia - 110,000 Bitcoin -The North Korean government - 180,000 Bitcoin Economic growth today is about -2% per year. Why is this? If you own more than 0.01 Bitcoin, chances are you don't do anything with your money. There is no inflation, and thus no incentive to invest your money. Just like the medieval ages had no significant economic growth, as wealth was measured in gold, our society has no economic growth either, as people know their 0.01 Bitcoin will be enough to last them a lifetime. The fact that there are still new Bitcoin released is what prevents our world from collapse so far it seems, but people fear that the decline in inflation that will occur during the next block halving may further wreck our economy. What happened to the Winklevoss twins? The Winklevoss twins were among the first to die. After seeing the enormous damage done to the fabric of society, terrorist movements emerged that sought to hunt down and murder anyone known to have a large balance of Bitcoin, or believed to be responsible in any way for the development of cryptocurrency. Ironically, these terrorist movements use Bitcoin to anonymously fund their operations. Most people who own any significant amount of Bitcoin no longer speak to their families and lost their friends, because they had to change their identities. There have been also been a few suicides of people who could not handle the guilt after seeing what happened to the bag-holders, the type of skeptical people who continued to believe it would eventually collapse, even after hearing the rumors of governments buying Bitcoin. Many people were taken hostage, and thus, it is suspected that 25% percent of "Bitcoin rich" actually physically tortured someone to get him to spill his password. Why didn't we abandon Bitcoin, and move to another system? Well, we tried of course. We tried to step over to an inflationary cryptocurrency, but nobody with an IQ above 70 was willing to step up first and volunteer. After all, why would you voluntarily invest a lot of your money into a currency where you know your wealth will continually decline? The thing that made Bitcoin so dangerous to society was also what made it so successful. Bitcoin allows us to give into our greed. In Africa, surveys show that an estimated 70% of people believe that Bitcoin was invented by the devil himself. There's a reason for this. It's a very sensitive issue that today is generally referred to as "the tragedy". The African Union had ambitious plans to help its citizens be ready to step over to Bitcoin. Governments gave their own citizens cell phones for free, tied to their government ID, and thus government sought to integrate Bitcoin into their economy. All went well, until "the tragedy" that is. A criminal organization, believed to be located in Russia, exploited a hardware fault in the government issued cell phones. It's believed that the entire continent of Africa lost an estimated 60% of its wealth in a period of 48 hours. What followed was a period of chaos and civil war, until the Saudi Arabian and North Korean governments, two of the world's major superpowers due to their authoritarian political system's unique ability to adapt to the "Bitcoin challenge", divided most African land between themselves and were praised as heroes by the local African population for it. You might wonder, what is our plan now? It's clear that the current situation can not be sustained, without ending in a nuclear holocaust. I am part of an underground network, who seek to launch a coordinated attack against the very infrastructure of the Internet itself. We have at our disposal about 20 nuclear submarines, which we will use to cut all underwater cables between different continents. After this has been successfully achieved, we will launch a simultaneous nuclear pulse attack on every densely population area of the world. We believe that the resulting chaos will allow the world's population to rise up in revolt, and destroy as many computers out there as possible, until we reach the point where Bitcoin loses any relevance. Of course, this outcome will likely lead to billions of deaths. This is a price we are forced to pay, to avoid the eternal enslavement of humanity to a tiny elite. This is also the reason we contacted you. It doesn't have to be like this. You do not have to share our fate. I don't know how, but you must find a way to destroy this godforsaken project in its infancy. I know this is a difficult thing to ask of you. You believed you were helping the world by eliminating the central banking cartel that governs your economies. However, I have seen where it ends.
Technically, Bitcoin was worth less than 10 cents per bitcoin upon its inception in 2009. The cryptocurrency has risen steadily since then and is now worth around $6000 per Bitcoin. This is the most remarkable appreciation of the value and has created many millionaires over the last eight years. Here are the top ten people/institutions that held a large amount of Bitcoins over time: 1. Satoshi Nakamoto The creator of Bitcoin, who hides behind the moniker Satoshi Nakamoto, remains the major holder of bitcoins. The number of bitcoins that Nakamoto owns today is estimated at around 1.1 million, based on the early mining that he did. This is the equivalent of about $6 billion at today’s exchange rate of 1BTC to 6,098 USD. At least Nakamoto has never touched most of his bitcoins, and neither converted them into real-world currencies nor used them for any other purpose. If he were to sell his entire stash, the value of Bitcoin could plummet in an instant. 2. Bulgaria Bulgaria is currently sitting on one of the biggest stashes of Bitcoin in the world. How did the European nation come into the possession of this enormous sum of money? A crackdown on organized crime by the Bulgarian law enforcement in May 2017 resulted in the seizure of a stash of 213,519 Bitcoins, enough to pay off a quarter of the country’s national debt. According to Bulgarian authorities, the criminals used their technical prowess to circumvent taxes. As of June 2018, the virtual coins would be worth more than $1.2 billion. The Bulgarian government has declined to comment on the status of the coins. 3. BitFinex BitFinex, a crypto exchange, has one of the largest bitcoin wallets with 163,133.38 BTC that are worth approximately $1 billion at the current price of $6,098.24 per bitcoin. The coins are believed to be kept in a cold wallet to protect them from cyber hacks, unauthorized access and other vulnerabilities that a system connected to the internet is prone to. 4. The FBI The FBI is one of the largest renowned holders of Bitcoin. In September 2013, they brought down Silk Road, the infamous dark web drug bazaar, and seized 144,000 Bitcoin owned by the site’s operator Ross Ulbricht, better known as, “Dread Pirate Roberts”. Ulbricht made critical blunders that allowed investigators to locate the site and link him to it. Users of Silk Road are said to have traded around 9.5 million bitcoins since Ulbricht launched the site in 2011. Even thought the FBI sold a large amount of their Bitcoin holdings or even all, the FBI worth mentioned as they had a fortune in Bitcoin at some point. A large portion of the Bitcoins seized and sold went to Barry Silbert. 5. The Winklevoss Twins Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss were among the first Bitcoin billionaires. The duo had first gained popularity when they sued the Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing the idea of creating Facebook from them. They were contacted by Zuckerberg to develop the ConnectU site, which was to become Facebook later on. They used $11 million of the $65 million cash compensation they received from the legal dispute with Zuckerberg to purchase 1.5 million Bitcoins in 2013. Back then, one Bitcoin traded at $120. That investment has increased more than 20000% since then. The twins allegedly own around 1 percent of all Bitcoin in circulation. Their combined net worth is approximately 400 million. They created the Windex, funded several bitcoin-related ventures and invested $1.5 million in BitInstant. 6. Garvin Andresen Although bitcoin is the brainchild of Satoshi Nakamoto, Garvin Andresen is credited as the person who made it what it is today. Garvin is one of the people who has been suspected to be Satoshi, a claim he denies. Rather, he says that he had a close relationship with the anonymous cryptographer for many years. The real Satoshi Nakamoto picked him as his successor in late 2010. Garvin became the chief developer of the open source code that determines how Bitcoin operates – and whether it can survive. He was once paid over $200,000 in Bitcoin by the Bitcoin Foundation for his contributions. He had already cashed out multiple times. 7. Roger Ver Roger Ver, otherwise known as Bitcoin Jesus, is one of the first Bitcoin billionaires and believed to hold or held at least 100,000 bitcoins. The renowned libertarian allegedly dropped out of college to focus on his bitcoin-related projects. Unlike other crypto billionaires out there who are throwing their cash in the typical private Islands or luxury jets, Ver’s dream is to establish his own libertarian nation where every individual is the absolute owner of their own life and are free to do whatever they wish with their person or property. The controversial bitcoin evangelist renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and relocated permanently to a small Caribbean Island. 8. Barry Silbert Silbert is a venture capitalist and founder of Digital Currency Group. He was an early adopter of Bitcoin. He purportedly walked away with an eye-watering 48,000 Bitcoins in an auction held by the U.S. Marshals Service in 2014. The US government had confiscated much of the crypto coins from Ross Ulbricht, the alleged operator of the dark web marketplace for drugs and other illegal products. Bitcoin was then worth $350, which means Silbert’s coins have skyrocketed in value from $16.8 million to $288 million. 9. Charlie Shrem Charlie Shrem is no doubt one of the most controversial Bitcoin millionaires. He invested in a large quantity of Bitcoin in the early days of the cryptocurrency. Shrem was also an active member of the Bitcoin Foundation and founded BitInstant when he was just 22 years old. By the end of December 2014, Shrem had been found guilty of money laundering and received a two-year prison sentence. After his release from federal custody, he unveiled a startup called Intellisys Capital, a company that sells investment portfolios in blockchain companies. 10. Tony Gallippi A famous business magnate Tony Gallippi is also believed to be one of the big holders of bitcoins. He is the brain behind BitPay, one of the most popular Bitcoin payment service providers in the world. The company was launched in May 2011 and processes over one million dollars per day. Bitpay is also one of the companies to sign contracts with major companies including Microsoft, Dell, TigerDirect, and Newegg. By 2014, the company had employed approximately 100 people. Conclusion It is estimated that the top 1000 bitcoin addresses own approximately 35% of the total bitcoin in circulation. There are also thousands of individuals who hold large stashes of bitcoin but have chosen to remain anonymous.
Bitcoin Bitcoin Cash drama is not helping the community
I just posted a long text post pointing out that we should squash the drama on bitcoin it was deleted in 10 seconds. I have held bitcoin since 2013. The fact that I cannot voice my opinion in a community of other bitcoin holders is troubling. I don't consider myself a bitcoin expert. But I am a financial expert. The market will decide what to use. Bitcoin is just being introduced to the world. Having all of this infighting from some of the top people in bitcoin does NOT help for the adoption of bitcoin. The average user does not care about whitepaper, segwit, or lightning. Is it available? Does my merchant accept it? What are the fees associated with it? Those are going to be the questions the consumer answers. The beliefs of the original bitcoin core holders will not weigh in the decision when my mom decides to use it. IF Bitcoin fees stay high, then Bitcoin will simply become a store of value for the wealthy. My opinion (and the opinion of the Winklevoss twins) is that Bitcoin will replace gold. If you have a billion dollars of gold to move across the ocean - how exactly are you going to do that? Bitcoin solves that issue. But in terms of everyday things - replacing fiat - bitcoin in its current state doesn't seem like the thing to use. Is bitcoin cash the solution? I'm not sure. I'm invested in both. But what I'm NOT doing is bashing others for their CHOICE. If Bitcoin is supposed to be about "sticking it to the man" then why can't people voice their opinon on a reddit forum? Seriosuly??? We're talking about a forum. An opinion. Will we soon become like organized religion? "believe what I believe or you're dead to me." It's childish. It hurts the community. Bitcoin is down 10% as i am typing. Think that has nothing to do with what's going on?
I will start my post with the i'm a hodler preface before i get fanatics attacking me left right and center.. But i foresee some problems, and would appreciate a logical explanation how these circumstances will play out. Scenario 1 21 million bitcoins, with a presumption that 4 million are missing. Over time i see this number increasing but never decreasing, how will that affect bitcoin as a store of value? I'm aware of shipwrecks carrying tonnes of gold being lost, this could be a good example of the outcome. However there is almost always still more gold to be discovered.. (we have been using it as a store for centuries yet theres still gold out there to be mined.) Currently we estimate 2140 for this to have ran out of resources for bitcoin. Scenario 2 Bitcoin is supposed to equalise the playing fields of currency supposedly giving power back to the people.. yet with already 17.3 million already mined with a max limit of 21 million.. the majority of this asset has already fallen into a select few (the 1% dilemma we already face with current currency). We have already heard of the billion dollar Winklevoss twins, and there are few more. (even Craig Wright possibly, #Faketoshi)? So how does this fix the current system? To me the initial blocks mined scream of a very eloborate get rich quick scheme, with such huge rewards for early adopters.. was this satoshis intention, or a necessary compromise or maybe a miscalculation on his part? I'ts been 10 years since introduction.. yet we have mined 80% of the total reserve.. thats far too quick. I understand improvements of technology will improve bitcoin such as the current proposed lightning network (ill leave that proposal out of it as like the internet theres room for improvement).. however both scenarios above I don't believe can be rectified by a software solution.. so am interested in peoples thoughts on how they play out in the long run. Thanks!
Possible Counterarguments to XRP's Value Proposition
Considering going long XRP, but all the $589 phoenix conspiracy theory bulls*** makes it seem too obvious and thus too good to be true. There is information for the masses and information for the classes, if we know about it, the 1% and smart money is already invested. Therefore, I'm looking for possible flaws in my existing investment thesis. Here are 4 possible counterarguments to the value proposition of XRP. Please correct me if I'm wrong and leave your CONSTRUCTIVE thoughts below. *Ripple owns 60% of all XRP and when they distribute more XRP into the world in places like India, they are in effect creating a larger circulating supply by releasing coins which were previously in an escrow account. If they release coins at a faster rate than can be adopted would this drastically decrease price? If Ripple cashes out their XRP overtime to increase global usage will it be beneficial to only Ripple Labs, but not to XRP HODLERS longterm? Could this be why Ripple wants to legally separate themselves from XRP because it is not a security? *Since the network fees are paid through 'burning' XRPs, they essentially enrich everyone in proportion to the amount of XRPs they hold (if 1% of the tokens got burned, the remaining tokens would be worth about 1% more provided the market doesn't change). This means Ripple Labs is essentially earning 60% of all network fees on the network. This probably doesn't amount to much at the current time, but it may be more important in the future. *Ripple plans on integrating all of RippleNets software products (xVia, xCurrent and xRapid) into one convenient solution known as Convergence. Does convergence require the use of XRP? or could something better replace it down the line? *Large players who got into bitcoin and ethereum early on ie (winklevoss twins, brian armstrong among others) dont want to see XRP succeed and overtake ethereum or bitcoins market cap position. Some speculate this is the reason why XRP has not been listed on Coinbase. There are whales who have substantial economic incentives in opposition to XRP.
Crashing through the support lines like a Boss If you are reading this, then your awesome! ICO DOG started off as a simple twitter channel in January 2018. People started to follow the dog, because we provided useful insights into ICO investing and whitelist links. Back then people still had to race everyone else to get into these things, before they would dump hard. In February we then had the first guys asking us to make a telegram chat room for the community and use primablock to pool funds together to send to such projects. It was a very exciting time to see ICO DOG brand grow so organic. After that, the market crashed 20% every single day. That was a rough period. To be honest, the whole year was a stony road. Several people came together, that were very active in the telegram channel and formed a team. It was like a mini DAO. We had review & marketing guys, tech guys, lawyer team and all that happened by itself on Telegram. We build the first Presale Platform, created a cool UI for users introduced a level system to build the community and later even added master nodes. However, things just became more and bleaker. As Bitcoin fell closer to $3000 more people left and the group became silent. Sounds like a sad story right? Well, every good storyline has a downturn, followed by a boost of motivation to get through all the shit. A few months ago, we decided that the ICO space became a bit too scammy in 2018. We started to become more selective with the investment choices and eventually stopped pooling altogether. Pooling was about winning together, and it’s not fun if everybody loses. We started to look into other forms of revenue that we can build up to keep us over water until the bear market is over. What we love to do the most is community building, and community is the MOST important aspect of a decentralized network. The idea of blockchain was it to move from a centralized system to a decentralized one. This word decentralized is being thrown around on a daily basis although most people still do not understand what it means to change the architecture from centralized to decentralized. Most if not all big projects still have a very centralized structure going on with a few exceptions like Bitcoin, Ethereum & Steem. Understanding decentralized Architecture A decentralized architecture is fundamentally different to anything we know as of know. That’s also why it’s so hard to understand. Think of bitcoin as the first decentralized company. Let’s call it Bitcoin Crop. To help understand the Bitcoin Company metaphor, let’s say bitcoins properties are the products that this new decentralized company is producing. Common things said about Bitcoin is its decentralized, censorship resistance peer to peer money. These are often the terms used when people tell you why you should buy bitcoin. Bitcoin is the fastest growing asset of all time. Therefore Bitcoin as the first decentralized company is the fastest growing Company in the world, reaching an evaluation of over 300 Billion USD in less than 10 years. Although the Bitcoin Company is producing high-quality stuff, the products themselves are only as good as the sales, distribution, marketing and that where decentralized architecture kicks centralized companies ass. To make things even more complicated we now have to rethink what it means to be paid and to receive a salary. In a centralized company, build on the centralized architecture model, you work for your boss, who has a boss and that boss gets told what to do by some CEO who then has to take his others from shareholders. The money “trickles down” the food chain and by the time it reaches the bottom almost all of it is gone. Let’s compare this with the first decentralized company Bitcoin. In the Bitcoin company its a bit more complicated than that. In the early days of the company, if you want to work there, you actually have to pay the company first! Crazy I know! Think of it as some tribute to show your loyalty to the Network. The earlier you join, the less you have to pay, and the more of the company network you own. In the early days of Bitcoin Corp. most of the employees there were just engineers and a few crazy marketing guys. Things became a lot more interesting in 2013, when some important people started to work at Bitcoin Corp. People like the Winklevoss twins, Roger ver, Chamath Palihapitiya and many others bought a big share in Bitcoin Corp. and thereby earned the right to work for the Bitcoin. After that, Bitcoin Corp started to grow exponentially, because those new high-class employees had a lot of leverage and even more incentive to grow Bitcoin. The harder they would work the bigger the company would become and the more valuable there coins would be. This was the birth of the first decentralized payroll. Most of the mentioned people earned millions working for Bitcoin and are still working hard getting ETFs approved and spreading the word about it. Every person that owns Bitcoin becomes an employee at Bitcoin Corp. Everybody is rewarded for the work that anybody does, and everybody is incentivized to help grow the Bitcoin company. Introducing a New Way of Doing Everything A few months ago, we decided to build software to help ICOs build their own decentralized Networks. We called the system Proof of Engagement and called the Software the DAO Maker. Pun intended. Proof of Engagement is a concept that helps onboard new users and uses token bondage curves and community incentive to create an organic community of long-term token holders. We took our functions that we build to detect contributors in an ICO pool and combined it with our Point system to great a smart community program. The idea is that users can join the ICO before it starts and do community work, quizzes, and other services before the public sale ends. Once the tokens are unlocked, those users that joined the ICO will get their investment tokens + engagement reward tokens. Users can then continue to earn community bonus tokens monthly, but ONLY if they keep their ICO token in the wallet which they used for investing into the ICO. The monthly rewards increase with: Time user holds the initially invested coins. Time users hold their earned engagement tokens. The total amount of tokens held by registered users. The total amount of tokens user is currently holding. Current users community level. Monthly earned points. All of these factors are added together, to give the exact value that a user will receive monthly. Put simply its a micro staking system, that rewards engaged users in tokens. The result is a dynamic token bonded community. People have incentives to build and help the network, the more experience that have the more tokens they will own, the more tokens they will earn. The system incentives loyalty and hodlers, while also makes it possible for new users to join the system and help the network to grow. For a deeper understanding on Dynamic Token Bonding Curves you can check out some publications on Token Economy here  The best KYC & AML & CTF in Crypto For the past months, we were talking to A LOT of KYC providers. We quickly came to the conclusion that most of them are scams. The state of Anti Money laundry in crypto is pretty scary. I lots of people will end up in court for violating the AML directives. Currently, most ICOs do not comply with KYC & AML laws. The EU currently requires to be compliant until the 4th EU AML directive, which will change in 2019. We are already compliant with EU AMLD5, which is not in force yet but already includes cryptocurrencies, we are a step ahead of the curve in the EU. Starting this week, we will introduce the new KYC & AML features on our Platform. We are using the newest system of machine learning to scan a users face and password as well as detecting an applicants voice, to generate a complete biometric signature of his application. We will be able to onboard KYC & AML application in real time and will be one of the first fully compliant with the new regulations of 2019.  Updates to ICODOG Reviews We changed the homepage for ICO DOG to show more crypto stories, reviews and post analysis. We are working on a more in-depth redesign for ICODOG.IO in 2019. We added a few new Blog sections namely, ICO Analysis and Post ICO Reviews and Crypto Stories. We want to take more time in 2019 to evaluate ICOs that concluded their Sale in 2017 & 2018. We are planning to make this a decentralized work effort with the help of Token Curated Lists (TCL). We will make a few posts about TCL in the next few weeks. ICODOG.IO is focusing on providing value-adding content, not the same stuff that the mainstream crypto outlets write about. This will be a really cool project that we are very excited to start next year and finish by end of Q1 2019. We welcomed 3 new writers to the ICODOG team and are trying to produce useful content every day. New Partnerships & Business Development Last month we Partnered up with several high-quality service providers as well as high potential ICOs. We will add all of the new partners on the Partners on the Partners tap of the updated website. Looking forward to building the new world with likeminded people. ICO DOG Platform Upgrade 2.0 We been very busy and added a lot new feature on ICO DOG Investment platform. We are still in bug hunting so if you use the bug bounty tap on the platform to help us. We added some cool features that will make the life of many a lot easier. Automated twitter confirmation Users once a user connects their Twitter account in the profile section and starts generating tweets and retweets, these actions will be detected at midnight automatically. That means users do not need to click claim every day, but instead can earn points directly on Twitter. Reddit Automated Integration Users can now also join the Reddit campaign and generate threads and comments to spread the word about ICO DOG. We increased the team to help with the distribution of content among all the social media accounts. This should help you guys earn points quicker and easier as well as build a community on Reddit. For launching this new system we are increasing the points for reddit registrations by 3x. Ambassador Program We added an Ambassador Program for the ICO DOG community. We added Ambassador status to several people already that have been part of the community for almost a year and been working together through this bear Market. Ambassadors have special rights and access to social media accounts, discord reddit and will be informed about the latest updates. ICO DOG COIN We plan to introduce the ICO DOG Coin next year. This coin will be the fuel that powers all of the ICO DOG utility. Ambassadors will get monthly airdrops in the ICODOG coin depending on their contribution. Part of the revenue that ICO DOG will make goes into the coin via buybacks and token burns. As we are not raising any funds from nobody, the coin is cannot be considered a security. All new Features Summarized Following a few of the new features: + Upgraded pool system: – new wallet management – my pools is now a list (click the red sync button to update your pools) – record and track all the transaction you have sent, even from different address – improved overall working flow + Add reddit integration with auto check (it runs every day) + Weekly competition + Global real-time notifications + Two factor authentication support (Google authenticator) + Twitter with auto claim (it runs every day, no need to click Claim anymore) + Many other new features and bug fixes  Summary This year was rough, but we did not give up. The harder Bitcoin Dumps, the harder we work! Things could be better in terms of the market, but fundamentally ICO DOG is doing pretty good. We want to thank all those that have been with us on this amazing journey since the beginning. Crypto will change the world and we will help make that happen. If you like what we do please register on the icodogpool platform and shill this and other-other content! As always like, share and join discord & telegram. https://icodog.io/crypto-stories/the-story-of-icodog-november-progress-report/
I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing.
Update, 27 oktober 2019: Well gee, this blew up. Bitcoin should not be treated as an investment, it should be recognized as a speculative negative-sum game. The Bitcoin system currently consumes an estimated 3.6 billion dollar worth of electricity on an annualized basis, just to update the ledger that contains a record of everyone's transactions. This enormous consumption of electricity is indirectly paid for by people who invest their savings in Bitcoin, as a consequence, money is continually "leaking" from the system. As a Bitcoin investor, you're paying for Chinese businesses to waste electricity by solving an abstract math problem that is designed to get continually more difficult. Besides ensuring that many people lose vast sums of money while a small minority of early adapters is enriched, Bitcoin causes tremendous ecological damage in an era when we should be focusing as a society on reducing our carbon emissions. The Bitcoin developers responsible for updating the protocol appear to have no genuine intention to introduce code changes that reduce the ecological damage caused by Bitcoin mining, so my suggestion has to be to sell your Bitcoins, which indirectly has the effect of reducing the ecological damage caused by Bitcoin mining. Theft and loss of coins are also enormous problems affecting Bitcoin, so although it is theoretically possible to store your coins in a safe manner, history has shown that a lot of people will simply lose their coins, further illustrating why Bitcoin is not a good investment option. The other cryptocurrencies share most of Bitcoin's flaws (resource waste, no protection against theft or loss, vulnerable to market manipulation, etc), but most importantly, what sets cryptocurrencies apart from proper investments is that these coins don't produce anything. If you invest in a company, that company can use the money to deliver more products. If you buy, silver, gold, bitcoin or beanie babies, you're hoping someone else will come along one day and pay more money for it. History has shown that people who invest money in the stock market will generally end up witnessing much higher returns than people who buy gold. With that said, I hope this story has entertained you and helped you recognize some of the problems our society would face if we ever witnessed widespread adaption of Bitcoin or similar digital currencies. I am sending this message from the year 2025. Things are looking bleak here, and some of you will carry blood on your hands. If you don't believe me, please move on, as I have no way of proving to you I'm really who I claim to be. I don't want to waste any of your time, so I'm merely going to explain what happened. On average, every year so far, the value of Bitcoin has increased by about a factor ten. From 0.1 dollar in 2010, to 1 dollar in 2011, to 10 dollar in 2012, to 100 dollar in 2013. From now on, there's a slight slowdown, as the value increased by a factor ten every two years, to 1,000 dollar in 2015, to 10,000 in 2017, 100,000 in 2019, and 1,000,000 in 2021. From here onwards, there's no good way of expressing its value in dollars, as the dollar is no longer used, nor is any central bank issued currency for that matter. There are two main forms of wealth in today's world. Land and cryptocurrency. There are just over 19 million Bitcoin known to be used in the world today, as well as a few hundred thousand that were permanently lost, and we're still dealing with a population of just over 7 billion people today. On average, this means the average person owns just under 0.003 bitcoin. However, due to the unequal distribution of wealth in my world, the mean person owns just 0.001 bitcoin. That's right, most of you reading this today are rich. I personally live next to an annoying young man who logged into his old Reddit account two years ago and discovered that he received a tip of 0.01 Bitcoin back in 2013 for calling someone a "faggot" when he was a 16 year old boy. Upon making this discovery he bought an airline ticket, left his house without telling anyone anything and went to a Citadel. "What is a Citadel?" you might wonder. Well, by the time Bitcoin became worth 1,000 dollar, services began to emerge for the "Bitcoin rich" to protect themselves as well as their wealth. It started with expensive safes, then began to include bodyguards, and today, "earlies" (our term for early adapters), as well as those rich whose wealth survived the "transition" live in isolated gated cities called Citadels, where most work is automated. Most such Citadels are born out of the fortification used to protect places where Bitcoin mining machines are located. The company known as ASICminer to you is known to me as a city where Mr. Friedman rules as a king. In my world, soon to be your world, most governments no longer exist, as Bitcoin transactions are done anonymously and thus most governments can enforce no taxation on their citizens. Most of the success of Bitcoin is due to the fact that Bitcoin turned out to be an effective method to hide your wealth from the government. Whereas people entering "rogue states" like Luxemberg, Monaco and Liechtenstein were followed by unmanned drones to ensure that governments know who is hiding wealth, no such option was available to stop people from hiding their money in Bitcoin. Governments tried to stay relevant in my society by buying Bitcoin, which just made the problem worse, by increasing the value of Bitcoin. Governments did so in secret of course, but my generation's "Snowdens" are in fact greedy government employees who transferred Bitcoin to their own private account, and escaped to anarchic places where no questions are asked as long as you can cough up some money. The four institutions with the largest still accessible Bitcoin balance are believed to be as following: -ASICminer - 50,000 Bitcoin -The IMF's "currency stabilization fund" - 70,000 Bitcoin -Government of Saudi Arabia - 110,000 Bitcoin -The North Korean government - 180,000 Bitcoin Economic growth today is about -2% per year. Why is this? If you own more than 0.01 Bitcoin, chances are you don't do anything with your money. There is no inflation, and thus no incentive to invest your money. Just like the medieval ages had no significant economic growth, as wealth was measured in gold, our society has no economic growth either, as people know their 0.01 Bitcoin will be enough to last them a lifetime. The fact that there are still new Bitcoin released is what prevents our world from collapse so far it seems, but people fear that the decline in inflation that will occur during the next block halving may further wreck our economy. What happened to the Winklevoss twins? The Winklevoss twins were among the first to die. After seeing the enormous damage done to the fabric of society, terrorist movements emerged that sought to hunt down and murder anyone known to have a large balance of Bitcoin, or believed to be responsible in any way for the development of cryptocurrency. Ironically, these terrorist movements use Bitcoin to anonymously fund their operations. Most people who own any significant amount of Bitcoin no longer speak to their families and lost their friends, because they had to change their identities. There have been also been a few suicides of people who could not handle the guilt after seeing what happened to the bag-holders, the type of skeptical people who continued to believe it would eventually collapse, even after hearing the rumors of governments buying Bitcoin. Many people were taken hostage, and thus, it is suspected that 25% percent of "Bitcoin rich" actually physically tortured someone to get him to spill his password. Why didn't we abandon Bitcoin, and move to another system? Well, we tried of course. We tried to step over to an inflationary cryptocurrency, but nobody with an IQ above 70 was willing to step up first and volunteer. After all, why would you voluntarily invest a lot of your money into a currency where you know your wealth will continually decline? The thing that made Bitcoin so dangerous to society was also what made it so successful. Bitcoin allows us to give into our greed. In Africa, surveys show that an estimated 70% of people believe that Bitcoin was invented by the devil himself. There's a reason for this. It's a very sensitive issue that today is generally referred to as "the tragedy". The African Union had ambitious plans to help its citizens be ready to step over to Bitcoin. Governments gave their own citizens cell phones for free, tied to their government ID, and thus government sought to integrate Bitcoin into their economy. All went well, until "the tragedy" that is. A criminal organization, believed to be located in Russia, exploited a hardware fault in the government issued cell phones. It's believed that the entire continent of Africa lost an estimated 60% of its wealth in a period of 48 hours. What followed was a period of chaos and civil war, until the Saudi Arabian and North Korean governments, two of the world's major superpowers due to their authoritarian political system's unique ability to adapt to the "Bitcoin challenge", divided most African land between themselves and were praised as heroes by the local African population for it. You might wonder, what is our plan now? It's clear that the current situation can not be sustained, without ending in a nuclear holocaust. I am part of an underground network, who seek to launch a coordinated attack against the very infrastructure of the Internet itself. We have at our disposal about 20 nuclear submarines, which we will use to cut all underwater cables between different continents. After this has been successfully achieved, we will launch a simultaneous nuclear pulse attack on every densely population area of the world. We believe that the resulting chaos will allow the world's population to rise up in revolt, and destroy as many computers out there as possible, until we reach the point where Bitcoin loses any relevance. Of course, this outcome will likely lead to billions of deaths. This is a price we are forced to pay, to avoid the eternal enslavement of humanity to a tiny elite. This is also the reason we contacted you. It doesn't have to be like this. You do not have to share our fate. I don't know how, but you must find a way to destroy this godforsaken project in its infancy. I know this is a difficult thing to ask of you. You believed you were helping the world by eliminating the central banking cartel that governs your economies. However, I have seen where it ends.
In case you missed it: Major Crypto and Blockchain News from the week ending 12/14/2018
Developments in Financial Services
A cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (ETP) that trades on Switzerland’s Six Exchange saw record trading volumes on Thursday and Friday last week, suggesting that institutional investors may be buying the dip in cryptocurrencies. Four major cryptocurrencies underlie the HODL ETP, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). While HODL ETP’s one-month average daily trading is 20,000 shares, on Thursday, December 6th, and Friday, December 7th, 53,233 shares and 62.986 shares were traded, respectively.
A report published last week by global anti-money laundering policymaker, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), indicates that cryptocurrency exchanges in the United Kingdom pose a, “low risk,” for money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The report, however, does highlight that such activities on UK cryptocurrency exchanges are an, “emerging risk,” although there is not yet enough evidence to suggest that these activities are occurring through cryptocurrency exchanges. In its report, the FATF urged UK regulators to, “Continue to develop an understanding of emerging risks (such as virtual currencies) and intelligence gaps, and take appropriate action.”
Andreas Utermann, CEO and CIO of Allianz Global Investors, called on global financial regulators to ban cryptocurrencies while speaking at a panel discussion in London. According to a report by Reuters, Utermann said, “You should outlaw it,” while participating in a panel alongside Andrew Bailey, the head of Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority. Bailey responded by saying that Utermann’s comments were, “quite strong,” before adding that cryptocurrencies have, “no intrinsic value.”
Basis, a major US-based stablecoin project, is shutting down its operations and returning most of its funds to investors, according to a report by crypto news outlet The Block. The report by The Block cited, “multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation,” in claiming that the algorithmic stablecoin project, which generated UDS$133mm of funding through private investments in April, will return funds to investors. According to the Co-Founder and CEO of competing stablecoin project Nevin Freeman, Basis’ shutdown is due to regulatory concerns around one of its token types. Freeman explained, highlighting that algorithmic stablecoins implement a “secondary token”, known as a “bond token”, to help maintain the primary token’s peg. In many cases, regulators like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consider these secondary tokens to be securities.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, announced that it has added Circle’s US dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), to its combined Stablecoin Market. Circle, a company backed by Goldman Sachs, first released its stablecoin in September of this year. Binance’s combined Stablecoin Market features other notable stablecoins, like Tether (USDT), that trade against cryptocurrencies as interchangeable base pairs.
Coinone, a South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange, has officially launched Cross, a cross-border payments application that leverages Ripple’s xCurrent product to increase efficiencies. The application, released by Coinone’s payments subsidiary, Coinone Transfer, targets unbanked or underbanked South Koreans by enabling the transfer of funds to Thailand or the Philippines at a low cost.
Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange heralded by the Winklevoss twins, released an official company blog post this weekend announcing that the firm will support Bitcoin Cash (BCH) custody and trading. The exchange will support only the Bitcoin Cash ABC network at this time, adding that they, “are continuing to evaluate Bitcoin SV over the coming weeks or months, and we may or may not choose to support withdrawals and/or trading of Bitcoin SV in the future.” Additionally, the company detailed that its listing of BCH is pending regulatory approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Gemini, the cryptocurrency trading platform founded by the Winklevoss twins, announced the launch of a mobile crypto trading application in an official blog post today. Accompanying the launch of the crypto trading app is a new investment vehicle, dubbed, “The Cryptoverse,” that is comprised of a basket of cryptocurrencies weighted by market capitalization. While speaking to Bloomberg today, Cameron Winklevoss said that, “A lot of our decisions have perhaps given off a perception that we’re more institutional-based. The reality of the situation is that we have a diverse customer base. And the retail story is just beginning.” The Winklevoss twins went on to detail of a goal to expand reach to Asian markets by 2019’s end.
Good Money, a US neo-banking platform, has closed its Series A investment round that generated USD$30mm led by cryptocurrency-focused merchant bank Galaxy Digital and the founder of EOS (EOS) Block.one. Good Money aims to provide a variety of banking service and certain financial instruments to US account holders while exploring innovative changes to traditional banking practices. “Modern banking is a primary driver of so many issues we as a society face – from economic inequality, institutional racism, environmental destruction to political corruption,” said Good Money founder Gunnar Lovelace. Specifically, Good Money eliminates ATM fees while offering each bank user equity in the company.
Kraken, a notable cryptocurrency exchange, is seeking to raise funding with a USD$4bn valuation for the company and a USD$100,000 investment minimum, according to CoinDesk. In an email to investors, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell wrote, “There is presently a limited time opportunity available to a very small select number of clients to purchase shares.” The email goes on to detail that the exchange will close its offer on December 16th.
OKEx, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, will begin listing Bitcoin Cash ABC under the original Bitcoin Cash ticker (BCH), as per an official announcement Tuesday. Additionally, OKEx will change the Bitcoin Cash SV ticker from BCHSV to BSV. The announcement by OKEx comes after other notable cryptocurrency exchanges have made the same switch, including Coinbase and Gemini.
PayPal, an online payments portal, has launched its own internal private blockchain platform that will allow staff to trade and exchange tokens while generating ideas and participating in programs to foster innovation, as per a report by news outlet Cheddar. The private blockchain network, which was built by 25 PayPal employees in just 6 months, will allow employees to earn more for enrolling in learning and development programs. The PayPal tokens are not tradeable, or worth anything for that matter, outside PayPal’s blockchain.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a big four consulting firm, is partnering with Bitfury Group, a large blockchain software and mining firm, to develop a blockchain accelerator specific to Russian businesses. As per an official press release by PwC, the partnership will leverage Exonum, Bitfury’s open source framework to build blockchain applications, for educational courses and seminars. The partnership aims to meet the, “current needs,” of PwC’s enterprise clients in Russia.
Revolut, a digital banking alternative with an in-application cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has been awarded a European banking license. Seeking to become the, “Amazon of banking,” the license will allow Revolut to offer traditional banking services alongside its current cryptocurrency offerings to European customers. Nikolay Storonsky, Founder and CEO of Revolut, said in regards to the newly acquired license that, “With the banking license now secured, commission-free stock trading progressing well, and five new international markets at final stages of launch, we are living up to our reputation as the ‘Amazon of Banking’. Our vision is simple: one ap with tens of millions of users, where you can manage every aspect of your financial life with the best value and technology.”
Shinhan Bank, the second-largest commercial bank in South Korea, is launching a new project to implement blockchain technology in its internal processes with a goal of eliminating human error. According to a report by news outlet The Korea Times, Shinhan also recently completed a training program for its staff to increase their knowledge of blockchain technology across various applications. After Shinhan implemented blockchain technology for interest rate swap transactions on November 30th, South Korea’s second-largest bank is now aiming to apply the technology in its record-keeping process to enhance overall efficiencies.
SolarisBank, Germany’s second-largest and Europe’s ninth-largest stock exchange, is partnering with Stuttgart Exchange Group, a German fintech company, to jointly develop a cryptocurrency exchange. As per a report by Cointelegraph Germany, the joint cryptocurrency exchange venture, “is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2019.” This news comes after SolarisBank announced plans to launch a zero-fee cryptocurrency trading application this past May.
The Canadian city of Calgary is becoming the first city in Canada to launch a digital version of its local currency, according to a report by the Global News. Dubbed as the Calgary Digital Dollar, the digital currency will be exclusive to Calgary and operate alongside the country’s Canadian Dollar. Calgary-based businesses will now be required by law to accept at least 10% of a payment in digital currency, although they are allowed to accept up to 100%.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is launching a pilot of its Global Payment Initiative (GPI) to combat growing blockchain and fintech solutions, according to an official announcement last week. Currently, the SWIFT Network is used by global financial institutions to conduct global financial payments and cross-border transfers of fiat currency. Although the project is still in its early stages, the GPI pilot hopes to, “build the foundation of a new integrated and interactive service that will significantly improve efficiencies in the payments process and which will ultimately be made available to all 10,000 banks across the SWIFT network.”
The United Arab Emirates’(UAE) central bank is partnering with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to develop a cryptocurrency to facilitate cross border transactions between the two countries, according to a report by news outlet GulfNews. In a meeting pertaining to global banking standards and regulation in the Arab region, Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, the governor of the UAE’s central bank, said, “This is probably the first time ever that witnesses the cooperation of monetary authorities from different countries on this topic and we hope that this achievement will foster similar collaboration in our region.” The prospective digital currency will be used by both central banks and financial institutions in the countries.
TokenSoft, a security token offering (STO) startup, has acquired a 20% stake in regulated broker-dealer Marpine Securities LLC in order to launch its own regulated broker-dealer. After acquiring the 20% stake, TokenSoft will launch its new regulated broker-dealer entity, called TokenSoft Global Markets, that will be registered through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The new regulated broker-dealer entity will allow TokenSoft to advise token issuers through every step of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) process. Additionally, TokenSoft will now be able to legally operate in services related to insurance and management.
Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors and a notable cryptocurrency pundit, believes that the current fair value of Bitcoin (BTC) is between USD$13,800 and USD$14,800, according to a note published on Thursday. Lee arrived at this valuation by taking into account the number of active wallet addresses, usage per account, and other supply and demand metrics. Additionally, Lee forecasted that the fair value of BTC will reach USD$150,000/coin once BTC wallets account for 7% of Visa’s 4.5bn account holders.
UAE Exchange, an exchange based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is partnering with Ripple to launch a blockchain-based cross-border remittances platform by 1Q2019, as per a Reuters report on Thursday. The report details further that Finablr, a payments and foreign exchange company that owns UAE Exchange, observes a high level of remittance inflows from expatriate workers in the Middle East region. “We expect to go live with Rippel by Q1, 2019 with two other Asian banks,” said Finablr CEO Promoth Manghat, adding, “This is for remittances to start with, from across the globe into Asia.”
Regulatory Environment
De Nederlandsche Bank, the Netherlands’ central bank, will soon require domestic cryptocurrency providers to obtain a license from the regulator to operate, as per a report by Dutch news outlet DeTelegraaf. The Netherlands' central bank is taking these measures in the hope that it will, “prevent such cryptocurrencies from being used to launder money obtained through crime or to fund terrorism.” In order to receive a license, cryptocurrency firms must maintain Know-Your-Customer procedures and report any suspicious activity to the Dutch central bank.
Eddie Hughes, a conservative member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) should be accepted as legal tender for tax and utility payments, according to news outlet Express.co.uk. The article discusses that Hughes, who is a self-described, “crypto enthusiast with amateur knowledge,” recently met with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which accepts cryptocurrency donations. This news comes after the US state of Ohio announced that it would begin accepting BTC as legal tender for tax payments.
Following a case in Canadian courts that resulted in a ruling ordering mistakenly sent crypto funds to be returned to their owner, a blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law is noting that there could be repercussions with the case potentially setting a precedent for lost or stolen cryptocurrency claims. The Canadian court case’s ruling will require defendant Brian Wall to return USD$370,482 worth of Ethereum (ETH) tokens to the plaintiff, Copytrack. The blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law reads, ‘This precedent may have major repercussions for the enforcement of claims regarding lost or stolen cryptocurrencies,” adding that the ruling allows the plaintiff to recover tokens, “in whatsoever hands those Ether Tokens may currently be held.”
Japan’s government is considering plans to ease cryptocurrency taxes in an effort to revitalize the domestic cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. This week, Japanese Congressman Takeshi Fujimaki proposed four significant changes to taxation requirements pertaining to digital assets, which include: a reduction on the cryptocurrency gains tax from 55% to 20%; elimination of taxes on crypto-to-crypto payments; elimination of taxes on miniscule cryptocurrency payments; and an adjustment that would allow cryptocurrency investors to carry forward losses across quarters and years, effectively until cryptocurrencies are ‘cashed’ out.
Jay Clayton, Chairman for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC), said during a speech that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), “can be effective,” for fundraising, but that, “securities laws must be followed.” Clayton went on in his speech to comment on the US SEC’s work regarding distributed ledger technology (DLT), digital assets, and ICOs, saying that it is an, “area where the Commission and staff have spent a significant amount of time,” and, “that this trend will continue in 2019.”
Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), expressed his optimism for distributed ledger technology’s potential impact on traditional financial markets in a testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs yesterday. According to a transcript published on the SEC’s website, Clayton said, “I am optimistic that developments in distributed ledger technology can help facilitate capital formation, providing promising investment opportunities for both institutional and Main Street Investors.” Additionally, Clayton highlighted that the SEC is, “Focusing a significant amount of attention and resources on digital assets and initial coin offerings (ICOs).”
Maxim Akimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, announced that no significant changes will be made to the draft of a bill concerning cryptocurrency regulation in the country, as per news outlet Finmarket. The bill was already approved by Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, in May 2018, although the bill has generated substantial discussion since. Since approval of the bill, all cryptocurrency and token-related terminology have been removed and replaced with the term “digital rights”. At the beginning of December, Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma, said that the bill needed to be, “significantly,” changed.
Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, highlighted that Security Token Offerings (STOs) in China are illegal while speaking at a summit in Beijing. As per a report by news outlet the South China Morning Post, Gongsheng told the summit that, “illegal financing activities through STOs and ICOs were still rampant in the mainland despite a nationwide clean-up of the cryptocurrency market last year.” In citing reasoning for the continued ban on STOs, Gongsheng explained that, “Virtual money has become an accomplice to all kinds of illegal and criminal activities.”
Pantera Capital, a blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused investment firm and hedge fund, is warning investors that as much as a quarter of their ICO project could potentially be violating US securities laws, according to a Bloomberg report. In a newsletter to clients, Pantera Capital warned, “While we believe the vast majority of the projects in our portfolio should not be affected, approximately 25% of our fund’s capital is invested in other projects with liquid tokens that sold to US investors without using Regulation D or Regulation S”
Russia has no intention of implementing Venezuela’s state-backed digital currency, the Petro, into commercial operations, according to a report by news outlet RIA Novosti. While speaking to reporters this week, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said, “Representatives from our tax service and central bank... got acquainted with the cryptocurrency Venezuela is introducing,” adding, “But no more than that. As for payments, they’re not happening yet.”
South Korea’s representative body, the National Assembly, held its first official meeting with seven of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges on Monday. The purpose of the meeting was to debate cryptocurrency regulation between stakeholders of South Korea’s cryptocurrency industry. Cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb, CobitCoin, Coinone, Upbit, Gopax, Coinplug, and Hanbitco were among the attendees of the debate, which reportedly focused on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) customer protections and Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental financial security body, is calling on the country’s government to increase monitoring of cryptocurrency markets. According to an official report last week, the UK must overhaul its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and combat terrorist financing (CFT) efforts in order to prevent illicit activities with cryptocurrencies. “Virtual currency exchange providers are not yet covered by AML/CFT requirements,” the report details, adding, “this is an emerging risk and there is not yet evidence to suggest that broad scale ML/TF is occurring in the UK through this relatively small sector.”
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is interested in learning more about the Ethereum (ETH) network, its technology, and the markets build around it. On Tuesday, the CFTC published a Request for Input (RFI) that requests the public’s feedback on different questions concerning Ethereum. The RFI explains that its goal is to inform the CFTC about Ethereum and similar emerging technology, saying, “The input from this request will advance the CFTC’s mission of ensuring the integrity of the derivatives market as well as monitoring and reducing the systematic risk by enhancing legal certainty in the markets. The RFI seeks to understand the similarities and distinctions between certain virtual currencies, including here ether and bitcoin, as well as ether-specific opportunities, challenges, and risks.”
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is ordering that cryptocurrency asset manager CoinAlpha Advisors LLC pay a USD$50,000 fine, alleging that the firm conducted an unregistered securities sale. After forming in October 2017, CoinAlpha raised more than USD$600,000 from investors to invest in digital assets. In an official release, the US SEC said that CoinAlpha did not file a Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities, meaning that the firm breached securities laws by soliciting securities investors. Additionally, the firm allegedly did not adhere to proper know-your-customer procedures to verify that investors were accredited.
Venezuela is reportedly beginning to convert its citizens’ monthly pension payments into Petros, Venezuela’s controversial state and oil-backed cryptocurrency, according to a report by local economics blog the Caracas Chronicles. The conversion of Venezuelan pensioners’ payments into Petros came after the country already sent pensioners their monthly payment in the form of a check for Venezuelan Bolivars -- normally, upon receiving their check, pensioners would deposit their funds into a bank account where they could then withdraw fiat from local branches. The Venezuelan government, however, converted pensioners’ fiat payments into the Petro upon their deposit into a bank. In the first few weeks of the Petro’s existence, its value has risen from 9,000 to more than 15,000.
Warren Davidson, an Ohio Congressman and notable advocate of blockchain and digital assets, is floating blockchain technology as a solution to fund US President Donald Trump’s prospective US-Mexico border wall. While interviewing with NPR, Congressman Davidson suggested, “the American people, or whomever should choose to donate,” could pay for the border wall, adding, “you could do it with sort of like a crowdfunding site or you could do a blockchain and you could have WallCoins.”
General News
“The long-term value of Bitcoin (BTC) is more likely to be USD$100 than USD$100,000,” says Kenneth Rogoff, a former Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the current Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy. While writing an article for major UK news outlet The Guardian, Rogoff highlighted that, because BTC’s use is limited to transactions, it makes the digital asset more vulnerable to a bubble-like collapse. Rogoff also cited that BTC’s energy-intensive verification processes is, “vastly less efficient,” than systems that leverage, “a trusted central authority like a central bank.”
A new report by PeckShield, a blockchain security company that monitors various cryptocurrency ecosystems, details that decentralized applications (DApps) on the EOS (EOS) blockchain have lost as much as USD$1mm in hacks since July 2018. The report details further that DApps on the EOS network have sustained 27 breaches since July, which are responsible for the up to 400,000 EOS that have been compromised from hacks. Guo Yonggang, a blockchain security expert cited in a report on the matter by crypto media firm Blockchain Truth, believes that the hacks can be attributed to security problems with the DApps themselves, rather than with the EOS network.
A new study published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance on Wednesday finds that the number of unique ID-verified cryptocurrency users nearly doubled in in the first 3 quarters of 2018. The study details that total ID-verified users increased to 35mm in the first three quarters of 2018 from 18mm at the end of 2017, representing an increase of 94%. As per an analysis of the study by Bloomberg, the growth of crypto’s userbase despite the market decline, “could signal that an eventual recovery could be coming.”
Amid the continued cryptocurrency sell-off, only two cryptocurrency mining machines remain profitable, according to real-time data from ASICMinerValue.com. ASICMInerValue.com, which calculates the profitability of Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners, indicates that only indicates that only the Ebank Ebit E11++ and ASICminer 8 Nano 44Th mining models are profitable for mining cryptocurrencies based on the SHA-256 hash function -- notable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) use this has function.
Bitmain, a large Chinese cryptocurrency mining firm, announced that it is closing its development center in Israel, citing current cryptocurrency market conditions. In closing Bitmaintech Israel, the crypto mining giant was forced to fire all 23 employees. Among the employees let go is Gadi Glikberg, head of Bitmain’s Israeli branch and Vice President of International Sales, who said on the recent market turmoil, “The crypto market has undergone a shake-up in the past few months, which has forced Bitmain to examine its various activities around the globe and to refocus its business in accordance with the current situation.”
Busan, a major South Korean city, will be the beneficiary of the South Korean government’s plan to spend 4bn Korean won (USD$3.5mm) to establish a blockchain-enabled virtual power plant (VPP). As per a report by South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency, the project will be angled as a national competition in 2019, hosted by South Korea’s largest electric utility, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The VPP will integrate the idle capacities of multiple energy resources through a cloud-based distributed ledger in order to optimize power generation and decrease costs.
Church’s Chicken, a large international fast food franchise, is partnering with Dash Venezuela to accept cryptocurrencies in its Venezuelan locations. According to an official press release, 13 Church’s Chicken establishments will begin accepting Dash (DASH) as payment following, “extensive and rigorous days of training,” staff to understand cryptocurrencies. With the addition of Church’s Chicken, more than 2,200 establishments in Venezuela accept DASH as payment.
Crypto.com, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency payments platform, announced the appointment of former PayPal executive Tyson Hackwood to serve as the firm’s Vice President and Head of Global Merchant Acquisition in an official press release today. Crypto.com aims to increase cryptocurrency adoption by both merchants and consumers through their point-of-sale (PoS) transaction terminals. Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek believes that Hackwood will be integral in furthering this goal, saying, “As we develop the Crypto.com Chain to fulfill the current industry need to pay and be paid in crypto, Tyson will play an important role in expanding the number and quality of merchants that are part of our network.”
Hyperledger, a notable blockchain consortium, is continuing its robust expansion after announcing the addition of 16 new members at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel, Switzerland. Among the notables to join the consortium are, Alibaba Cloud, Citigroup’s Citi Ventures arm, and Deutsche Telekom. The latest addition of 16 members brings the total membership of Hyperledger to more than 260 different companies. In a public statement, Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf said that, “The growing Hyperledger community reflects the increasing importance of open source efforts to build enterprise blockchain technologies across industries and markets. The latest members showcase the widening interest in and impact of DLT and Hyperledger."
Jeremy Henrickson, the former Chief Product Officer at Coinbase, has departed the US-based cryptocurrency exchange after serving since July 2016. “Jeremy’s contributions to Coinbase over the past two years were invaluable,” said a Coinbase spokesperson, adding that, “he helped to build our scrappy startup team into a high-functioning product and engineering organization -- overseeing a 5x+ growth of the team.” Henrickson’s departure comes after long-term Coinbase executives Adam White and Hunter Merghart left the US-based cryptocurrency exchange in recent months.
LinkedIn’s, “2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs,” report released on Thursday ranks the role of blockchain developer as the fastest growing job in the United States. The report by LinkedIn indicates that blockchain developer jobs have increased 33-fold in the past 12 months alone. San Francisco, New York City, and Atlanta are among the cities with the highest demand for blockchain developer jobs.
Orbs, a unique hybrid blockchain platform, raised more than USD$15mm in cryptocurrencies to fund its development of a public blockchain, according to a company blog post. South Korean application provider Kakao lead the fundraising efforts with a representative telling CoinDesk that the company, “always seeks to invest and support innovative startups, and Orbs is a good example.” In total, Orbs raised 139,000 Ether (ETH) and 892 Bitcoin (BTC), amounting to roughly USD$15.4mm. Orbs aims to build a public blockchain with this funding that is, “universal,” and, “scalable,” for decentralized applications (DApps) with the, “liquidity of a base layer.”
Samsung has reportedly filed patent applications for three different blockchain-related trademark requests that all pertain directly to smartphones, according to news outlet Galaxy Club. Specifically, the patents named “Blockchain KeyStore”, “Blockchain Key Box”, and “Blockchain Core” all pertain to cryptocurrency custody capabilities on smartphones. This news comes amid the release of HTC’s Exodus 1 and Sirin Labs’ FINNEY, both of which are being marketed as blockchain smartphones with cryptocurrency custody capabilities.
02-02 18:02 - 'What Happened to the 2013 Time Traveler's Post? A lot of u/Luka_Magnotta's predictions were coming to fruition...' (self.Bitcoin) by /u/globalchain removed from /r/Bitcoin within 0-5min
I am sending this message from the year 2025. Things are looking bleak here, and some of you will carry blood on your hands. If you don't believe me, please move on, as I have no way of proving to you I'm really who I claim to be. I don't want to waste any of your time, so I'm merely going to explain what happened. On average, every year so far, the value of Bitcoin has increased by about a factor ten. From 0.1 dollar in 2010, to 1 dollar in 2011, to 10 dollar in 2012, to 100 dollar in 2013. From now on, there's a slight slowdown, as the value increased by a factor ten every two years, to 1,000 dollar in 2015, to 10,000 in 2017, 100,000 in 2019, and 1,000,000 in 2021. From here onwards, there's no good way of expressing its value in dollars, as the dollar is no longer used, nor is any central bank issued currency for that matter. There are two main forms of wealth in today's world. Land and cryptocurrency. There are just over 19 million Bitcoin known to be used in the world today, as well as a few hundred thousand that were permanently lost, and we're still dealing with a population of just over 7 billion people today. On average, this means the average person owns just under 0.003 bitcoin. However, due to the unequal distribution of wealth in my world, the mean person owns just 0.001 bitcoin. That's right, most of you reading this today are rich. I personally live next to an annoying young man who logged into his old Reddit account two years ago and discovered that he received a tip of 0.01 Bitcoin back in 2013 for calling someone a "faggot" when he was a 16 year old boy. Upon making this discovery he bought an airline ticket, left his house without telling anyone anything and went to a Citadel. "What is a Citadel?" you might wonder. Well, by the time Bitcoin became worth 1,000 dollar, services began to emerge for the "Bitcoin rich" to protect themselves as well as their wealth. It started with expensive safes, then began to include bodyguards, and today, "earlies" (our term for early adapters), as well as those rich whose wealth survived the "transition" live in isolated gated cities called Citadels, where most work is automated. Most such Citadels are born out of the fortification used to protect places where Bitcoin mining machines are located. The company known as ASICminer to you is known to me as a city where Mr. Friedman rules as a king. In my world, soon to be your world, most governments no longer exist, as Bitcoin transactions are done anonymously and thus most governments can enforce no taxation on their citizens. Most of the success of Bitcoin is due to the fact that Bitcoin turned out to be an effective method to hide your wealth from the government. Whereas people entering "rogue states" like Luxemberg, Monaco and Liechtenstein were followed by unmanned drones to ensure that governments know who is hiding wealth, no such option was available to stop people from hiding their money in Bitcoin. Governments tried to stay relevant in my society by buying Bitcoin, which just made the problem worse, by increasing the value of Bitcoin. Governments did so in secret of course, but my generation's "Snowdens" are in fact greedy government employees who transferred Bitcoin to their own private account, and escaped to anarchic places where no questions are asked as long as you can cough up some money. The four institutions with the largest still accessible Bitcoin balance are believed to be as following: -ASICminer - 50,000 Bitcoin -The IMF's "currency stabilization fund" - 70,000 Bitcoin -Government of Saudi Arabia - 110,000 Bitcoin -The North Korean government - 180,000 Bitcoin Economic growth today is about -2% per year. Why is this? If you own more than 0.01 Bitcoin, chances are you don't do anything with your money. There is no inflation, and thus no incentive to invest your money. Just like the medieval ages had no significant economic growth, as wealth was measured in gold, our society has no economic growth either, as people know their 0.01 Bitcoin will be enough to last them a lifetime. The fact that there are still new Bitcoin released is what prevents our world from collapse so far it seems, but people fear that the decline in inflation that will occur during the next block halving may further wreck our economy. What happened to the Winklevoss twins? The Winklevoss twins were among the first to die. After seeing the enormous damage done to the fabric of society, terrorist movements emerged that sought to hunt down and murder anyone known to have a large balance of Bitcoin, or believed to be responsible in any way for the development of cryptocurrency. Ironically, these terrorist movements use Bitcoin to anonymously fund their operations. Most people who own any significant amount of Bitcoin no longer speak to their families and lost their friends, because they had to change their identities. There have been also been a few suicides of people who could not handle the guilt after seeing what happened to the bag-holders, the type of skeptical people who continued to believe it would eventually collapse, even after hearing the rumors of governments buying Bitcoin. Many people were taken hostage, and thus, it is suspected that 25% percent of "Bitcoin rich" actually physically tortured someone to get him to spill his password. Why didn't we abandon Bitcoin, and move to another system? Well, we tried of course. We tried to step over to an inflationary cryptocurrency, but nobody with an IQ above 70 was willing to step up first and volunteer. After all, why would you voluntarily invest a lot of your money into a currency where you know your wealth will continually decline? The thing that made Bitcoin so dangerous to society was also what made it so successful. Bitcoin allows us to give into our greed. In Africa, surveys show that an estimated 70% of people believe that Bitcoin was invented by the devil himself. There's a reason for this. It's a very sensitive issue that today is generally referred to as "the tragedy". The African Union had ambitious plans to help its citizens be ready to step over to Bitcoin. Governments gave their own citizens cell phones for free, tied to their government ID, and thus government sought to integrate Bitcoin into their economy. All went well, until "the tragedy" that is. A criminal organization, believed to be located in Russia, exploited a hardware fault in the government issued cell phones. It's believed that the entire continent of Africa lost an estimated 60% of its wealth in a period of 48 hours. What followed was a period of chaos and civil war, until the Saudi Arabian and North Korean governments, two of the world's major superpowers due to their authoritarian political system's unique ability to adapt to the "Bitcoin challenge", divided most African land between themselves and were praised as heroes by the local African population for it. You might wonder, what is our plan now? It's clear that the current situation can not be sustained, without ending in a nuclear holocaust. I am part of an underground network, who seek to launch a coordinated attack against the very infrastructure of the Internet itself. We have at our disposal about 20 nuclear submarines, which we will use to cut all underwater cables between different continents. After this has been successfully achieved, we will launch a simultaneous nuclear pulse attack on every densely population area of the world. We believe that the resulting chaos will allow the world's population to rise up in revolt, and destroy as many computers out there as possible, until we reach the point where Bitcoin loses any relevance. Of course, this outcome will likely lead to billions of deaths. This is a price we are forced to pay, to avoid the eternal enslavement of humanity to a tiny elite. This is also the reason we contacted you. It doesn't have to be like this. You do not have to share our fate. I don't know how, but you must find a way to destroy this godforsaken project in its infancy. I know this is a difficult thing to ask of you. You believed you were helping the world by eliminating the central banking cartel that governs your economies. However, I have seen where it ends.
Blockchain is a Lie — Just Another World Run by the Rich ???
Blockchain is a Lie — Just Another World Run by the Rich
https://preview.redd.it/iutln8o0g1j21.jpg?width=706&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09f1810ab6f679d61ec558dc1ef9089860cf8e52 Image: Bitcoin billionaires, The Winklevoss Twins Follow the Money More than just an alternative business model, blockchain represents ideology — a system in which the individual is no longer at the mercy of dominant institutions that control the flow of power, money, and data. If blockchain deteriorates into another world run by those who control the majority of the assets, it’s intent has been neglected and it has no reason to exist. Within chains managed by Proof-of-Work and Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithms, this is the reality. Users tout decentralization, rights of the individual, abandoning banks and more, but then fall into a system promoting the very same values they are rebelling against. PoW and DPoS are plutocracies in disguise. The former is at the mercy of firms that can afford the most hashing power, and the latter suppressed by those with the most currency. Whoever can afford to mine the most controls the flow in PoW systems — there’s no room for the individual with a starter setup having a say. Either invest a years salary or get lost. In the DPoS system, the irony is even more baffling: the people with the most currency ultimately get to write history. Is this still the blockchain world we want? Trading one system controlled by a ruling minority for another shouldn’t be in the discourse. Steadying Blockchains Ideological Path Blockchains growth will remain stunted unless the focus is shifted away from Proof-of-Work and Delegated Proof-of-Stake based consensus algorithms. The November BCH hashing wars that produced two new chains via hard fork, BCHABC and BSV, left many speculating over governing issues within the PoW world. Differences in principles have made this side of the blockchain vulnerable — anyone with a large enough following is able to hold everyone else hostage. Chain sustainability isn’t guaranteed due to the ease in which conflicting parties can force a hard fork. Those that preach DPoS put our future into the hands of 21 supernodes — corruption practically hard coded into the EOS genesis block. Everyone yearns for profit and power, making the have-nots pawns in the game controlled by those at the top. https://preview.redd.it/rlr14523g1j21.png?width=990&format=png&auto=webp&s=7cf8205df04d39d94046c61b3fa942bf20689de7 A Blunt Account of Blockchain Management Blockchain governance is defined as follows: “The ways in which collective action can be achieved by public communities and key stakeholders — particularly those regarding the revision of past agreements. “ In view of the lack of a decentralized and de-identified digital platform supporting the “one person, one vote system”, the governance of the chain is often seen as a plutocracy — currency and computing power are king. According to an article written by Vitalik Buterin, blockchain governance systems must be innately anti-plutocratic. Not only is on-chain coin-based governance inconsistent with user interests, it is also antithetical to the ethos of public blockchains. The blockchain is for the public, to serve the public interest. It isn’t for cryptocurrency whales to get more rich. Cryptocurrency holdings (like wealth in global society) is highly concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people. The blockchain isn’t supposed to be owned by anyone… nevermind by a small group of super rich individuals. — Buterin The interests of those who hold the wealth and those who actually use the blockchain are inherently different. In theory, blockchain could provide an equal playing field where the world isn’t controlled by large institutions only acting for profit and belittling the rights of individuals. When power becomes concentrated by those holding the most currency or with the most hashing power, users who continue to praise these systems are working against their own interests. The culture of blockchain implies egalitarian management. Anything else must be abandoned. https://preview.redd.it/33cmf726g1j21.png?width=1170&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b013f14df05c987dedb4907b1f29fc338b1ecfc Either we want it, or we don’t The current state of blockchain is a farce. Either we want a new system where power is decentralized, or we don’t. Pushing the ethics of the centralized systems that have shaped our world for the worse within the blockchain space only perpetuates the virus that is elitism — sucking world of its resources and milking the chain for every satoshi it’s got. The increased amount of ICOs in 2017 gave hope. Surely the competition would have promoted further developments — someone would have realised the bad traits trickling into blockchain- but only disappointment followed. What should have been the start of a blockchain renaissance, turned into a money grabbing free-for-all, with scams, poorly designed products, and reckless teams becoming the norm. But we do want it, we really do. We want the system as it was intended to be: quick, decentralized, egalitarian. A platform on which to build the next era of society. This stepping stone comes in the form of Bitconch. Backed by Turing and Nobel laureates, offering 120,000TPS, anti-plutocratic governance, and an ecosystem based on egalitarian values, Bitconch has the speed, security, and morals needed warm the Crypto Winter. Bitconch Solves the Issue of Governance The Proof-of-Reputation (PoR) consensus algorithm developed by Bitconch creates a quantified reputation value (Bit-R) based on three dimensions: social behavior, currency holding time, and community contribution. Users with reputations within the top 5% then have an opportunity to take part in the consensus. This system more accurately mirrors the natural world — individuals who are more trustworthy, contribute to their communities, and build relationships with those around them are incentivised to continue doing so. Money and the size of resources are no longer a consideration, which dissolves the power that the elite have over governing the chain and eliminates the possibility of bribery. Instead, there is room for devoted lower and middle class users to take part in the consensus, making the chain maintained by the people and for the people. The conflicting interests of currency holders and chain users, therefore, does not arise. Reputation makes for a conscientious ecosystem and reduced conflicts of interest supports ecosystem sustainability. https://preview.redd.it/2thjk0s7g1j21.png?width=2033&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea6d44f837959dd5bf57529ccc78d5a62699b731 Bitconch Solves the Speed Bottleneck If the speed of the platform is not scaled to the needs of the users, usage will ultimately fall flat. A blockchain is meant to be used, and chains with slow speeds are simply not practical. BLAZE (Bitconch Ledger Access Zero-delay Extension) allows for the simultaneous verification of multiple blocks through factoring the operation into five unique yet concurrent phases — fetching data, decoding, hashing, stating the change, and finally writing data. When BLAZE is coupled with PoR, the Bitconch platform offers 120,000TPS — making it a platform able to support extensive amounts of traffic. https://preview.redd.it/1zgopb09g1j21.png?width=1064&format=png&auto=webp&s=311788e98e73dc56737f2c5be2a5dc89d30a749b However, the current focus of the blockchain world should not be on pushing TPS speeds as high as possible. Developers and users alike have lost their way, once again falling victim to the very plutocracy that catalyzed the emergence of blockchain. The ideology producing these platforms urges for the rights of the individual over the concentration of power in a few. It doesn’t matter if the flow of money is controlled by a few institutions in the current global economy or by a few mining firms in the blockchain world — once power is taken from the individual, we must dissolve the system.
Hello! My name is Mihail Kudryashev, I am a frontend engineer at Platinum. We are a an international STO/IEO/ICO/POST ICO consulting, promotion and fundraising company with huge experience in STO and ICO marketing and best STO blockchain platform in the world! Learn more about it: Platinum.fund Our company gained popularity after launching the world’s number one online university with only practical knowledge on crypto economics. Now you can learn how to create and develop your own ICO and STO, how to market your campaign and make it super successful. Who are cryptocurrency investors? What drives people to invest in cryptocurrency? Read the extract of the UBAI lesson to get all the answers. Introduction to the Investors §2 In 2017, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization was approaching $850B which begs the question: Why are investors turning to cryptocurrencies? A survey by Blockchain Capital indicated that at least 30% of millennials would rather invest in bitcoin than invest in traditional stocks. Cryptocurrency investors, like traditional investors, expect a return at least proportionate to the risk they take. Due to the fundamental lack of regulation, incredible volatility and astronomical relative risk, many cryptocurrency investors expect to earn meteoric returns. Returns in the ranges of multiples from 200% to 1000%. Let us first begin by examining the kinds of people who invest in cryptocurrency, and then let’s see the reasons why each of them is investing in this relatively new market. Types of Investors The “Newbie” Cryptocurrency Investor This investor is just starting out. They probably have not had any significant experience in any form of investing before and bitcoin is their first experience. They have heard about people making incredible returns from cryptocurrency investing, or some aspect of the entire blockchain and crypto revolution attracts them, and they decide they want to invest too. Unfortunately, most of the newbie investors will end up losing their money, primarily because of one specific misconception; they think cryptocurrency investing is an easy way to make huge profits. “ “Types of Investors §2 “Gambler” or “Get Rich Quick” Investor This is the second class of cryptocurrency investor, and is actually not really an investor at all. This type of person is out to make a fortune as fast as possible. They will fall for whatever sweet-sounding scheme they hear. They love ideas that promise to double or triple their investment quickly. Like the Newbie, they do not understand how cryptocurrencies work, and they don’t care. The difference between this kind of investor and the successful individual or professional investor is that the gambler does not care about the management of risk, or about the timing of trades. They place their money on the table, and they hope it will make a good return. They are gambling rather than creating an investment thesis and executing a well-thought out strategy. They might even have an infectious positive attitude, but unfortunately it is not backed by knowledge or the due diligence required to be a successful investor. A good example of this style of thinking, outside of cryptocurrency, is high yield investment plans (HYIPs) that promise to multiply an investors capital by a certain factor. This is not to say that all HYIP programs are scams, but a good number of them are. Most importantly, the investors who flock into such plans have similar characteristics to that of the Get Rich Quick investor in that they will not take the time to learn about the field in which they are investing. They are just looking for fast money and an overnight success. “ “Types of Investors §3 Short Term Traders (Day/Swing Traders) Short term traders must, without a doubt, be the most knowledgeable investors if they are going to succeed at their chosen profession. They have, or they should have, studied the art and science of trading more thoroughly than other people. This is the kind of investor who has taken the time to learn about cryptocurrencies and the markets on which they trade. Short term traders create deliberate and timed strategies in an attempt to profit from fast market movements. Maybe many of the short term traders started off as Newbies, but these are the individuals who took the time and effort to learn about the market. They wanted to know what they were doing. These are the people who survived and thrived to grow into the type of trader that they want to be. Interestingly, the Day Trader does not attach emotion to any given coin. They do not need to believe in the sustainability/whitepapevision/road map, etc. of the project they are buying into at any particular time. They just need to be confident about the direction and timing of the potential price movement of the coin. “ “Types of Investors §4 Long Term Investors/ Hodlers A great majority of successful cryptocurrency investors can be most properly classified as Long Term Investors, or HODLers in true crypto terminology. These are investors who understand quite a bit about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology and believe in the sustainability of the coins in which they are investing. Think of the first few investors who bought bitcoin in the early days and years, when it was still deep under the radar for most people. These are the people who believed in the blockchain and cryptocurrency revolution. They didn’t sell their bitcoin for fast profit, although they had many chances to do so. They knew what they were doing, holding for the long term. These early investors and HODLers enjoyed astronomical growth all the way up to 2016 and 2017. But to be a long-term holder despite all the bad news and negative factors surrounding this brand new asset class, they must have really believed that bitcoin and the blockchain were going to change the world. This belief can only be established through study and research about the blockchain industry and the specific currencies and tokens in which you are going to invest. Follow up and learn more on www.ubai.co!” “Types of Investors §5 Sophisticated/Professional Investors These are experts in cryptocurrency investing. They most likely have a background in other forms of trading and investing, such as in stocks, bonds or options etc. They may also be earning fees by investing or managing money for other people. The Iconomi fund managers are a good example. Each Fund Manager manages an array of digital assets. Investors might choose Iconomi because it offers a platform for the investor to allocate funds to specific fund managers, with the ability to swap between managers instantly if the investor desires to do so. Each fund manager selects a number of coins in which they wish to trade or invest, with specified time horizons, short or long term. Investors can buy into the array of mutually held coins. This allows investors to utilize the knowledge and experience of professional fund managers to trade an allocated pool of capital, hopefully generating returns greater than the individual investor would be able to produce on his own. The fund managers are motivated by the fees and commissions they earn, and perhaps a performance-linked bonus. You can certainly be properly classified as a Sophisticated Investor without any need to be a fund manager for other peoples’ money. But a professional fund manager has the ability to trade with a larger pool of capital, manage complicated risk, and diversify trading strategy to generate various streams of income. “ “Between Countries A particular country’s participation in cryptocurrencies largely has to do with the legal regulations about blockchain projects and crypto currency investment in that jurisdiction. When China banned the use of cryptocurrency, most Chinese nationals had to withdraw their investments. Many other countries have also placed bans on the use or trade of cryptocurrencies. Countries like Japan that have allowed the use of cryptocurrencies have witnessed a significant rise in cryptocurrency investments as a result. Japan and South Korea are home to several high-traffic cryptocurrency exchanges, meaning that a notable proportion of their population is investing in cryptocurrencies. Another way to look at cryptocurrency investment demographics is to look at the bitcoin ATMs present in each country. The United States of America is the leading country, followed by Canada and then the United Kingdom. According to a report by Google trends, the five top countries interested in bitcoin are: South Africa, Slovenia, Nigeria, Colombia and Bolivia. Remember, cryptocurrency demographics can be a little tricky due to the anonymity involved. Many people may be afraid to participate in surveys, especially when their governments have placed legal restrictions on cryptocurrency investing. The main point the research seems to validate is that the demographics of the cryptocurrency investor base is diverse. While the average investor may be a white or Asian male between the ages of 26-30 with at least a university degree, the entire investor base is so much larger than that. Many big investors are likely to be significantly older, and have connections and businesses in the traditional economy as well. “ “Notable Investors in Cryptocurrency While many people have made fortunes from cryptocurrency investing, a handful of them stand out as being particularly remarkable. We will take a more detailed look at some of the biggest investment success stories to see how they did it and learn about their investing strategy. The Winklevoss Twins After being awarded their settlement from the lawsuit against Facebook, the Winklevoss twins decided to invest a significant portion of their money in Bitcoin. They invested $11million of the $65million they received. At that time, the price of a single bitcoin was about $120. This high-risk investment paid off handsomely and they became the first publicly known Bitcoin Billionaires, perhaps owning more than 1% of the total bitcoin in circulation. In an interview with Financial Times in 2016, the twins jointly said that they consider “Bitcoin as potentially the greatest social network because it is designed to transfer value over the internet”. They also pointed out that compared to gold, bitcoin has equal or greater foundational traits of scarcity and portability. “ “Notable Investors in Cryptocurrency §2 Michael Novogratz A self-made billionaire ex-Goldman Sachs investment banker, Novogratz has invested more than 30% of his fortune in cryptocurrency. In 2015, he announced a $500million cryptocurrency hedge fund, including $150million of his own money. Novogratz believes that “the blockchain, the computer code that underpins all cryptocurrencies, will reshape finance, just as the internet reshaped communication”. The investment thesis of Mr. Novogratz is similar to that of the Winklevoss twins. He has taken and maintains a long-term position while he trades in and out of short term moves, based on his fundamental belief in the potential and likely application of the underlying blockchain technology. By starting an investment fund in addition to his other cryptocurrency related ventures, he is demonstrating a strong fundamental grasp of the technology, including its applicability and impact across so many industries. Slide Barry Silbert In December 2014 after the US Marshal’s office seized 50,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road, Barry Silbert purchased just 2,000 of those bitcoins at $350 per coin. A few years later of course, those coins were worth millions of dollars. Barry is the founder and CEO of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) a cryptocurrency investment firm. Barry also made significant profits from Ethereum Classic, purchasing the coin in its very first days. He has invested in over 75 bitcoin related companies, including CoinDesk. As founder of the Digital Currency Group, Barry endeavors to support bitcoin and blockchain companies and accelerate the development of the global financial system. “ “Directly through Exchanges Step One: Register on a reputable cryptocurrency exchange To start investing, you first need to register on a reputable cryptocurrency exchange where you can buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Binance is a good exchange to use in this lesson. While it may or may not be the best, it is currently the largest, and they provide a very supportive layout and customer service department. You should remember, to buy most altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin), you specifically need to use an exchange like Coinbase or Kraken that allows you to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrency. From there, if you want to trade altcoins not listed on that exchange, you will have to transfer your BTC or ETH to a larger exchange like Binance, and buy the altcoin you want, using whichever trading pair that is best suited (BTC and ETH pairs are most common). As we have already explained, if you are buying Bitcoin or any cryptocurrencies, you should invest in a wallet to safely store your coins. It is not advisable to store your BTC or other crypto on the exchanges for too long, due to hacking and other risks. “ “Directly through Exchanges Step Two: Determine your Strategy There are different ways to invest. You need to find a strategy that works for you and your specific set of skills. The value of a cryptocurrency is not defined by a formula or something out a textbook. If everyone was able to calculate the actual value of a share of stock, for example, or a bond, or other tradeable asset, then the price on an open market exchange would never move. Buyers and sellers would know exactly how much the asset is worth, so there would be no reason to sell lower or buy higher than the actual value. You need to come up with your own ideas and strategies to take advantage of market moves. Sometimes you will have a position that is contrary to the general market. Other times you might be trading in agreement with a majority of other market participants. Investors are basically separable into one of two groups of thinkers. Contrarian investors go against the crowd, swimming against the current; Momentum investors ride the wave feeling secure in the majority. Being different can be good or it can be bad. You do not always want to necessarily get caught up in the most crowded trade. “ “Things to keep in Mind Bitcoin Futures We need to mention the bitcoin futures market as another potential way to invest. Toward the close of 2017, Bitcoin started trading on two fully recognized and well-established futures markets; the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange CME. The key quote from the exchanges was “because the futures can be traded on regulated markets, it will attract investors, making the market liquid, stabilizing prices and it will not suffer from low transaction speeds of Bitcoin Exchanges.” For a risk averse investor, this offers a safer entry into cryptocurrency investing. A futures contract commits its owner to buy or sell the underlying asset, BTC, at a set price, and at a set date in the future. The investor in the futures contract does not actually own the underlying asset, but rather is trading on fluctuations in the price of the asset over a certain timeframe, as specified in the futures contract. “ “Things to keep in Mind §2 Common Pitfalls We cannot conclude this lesson without one more look at the common pitfalls a new cryptocurrency investor should avoid. The problem areas are: -Falling for scams by failing to carry out due diligence. -Relying solely upon self-acclaimed crypto gurus and experts. If you want to trade, you must understand how to read news and charts for yourself. -Too much Greed. Not taking profit when you should. It is better to take a 20% gain, than wait for a 100% gain, only to lose it all in the end. -Lacking an investment strategy or exit plan. -Not sticking to your investment plan or strategy. -Allowing emotions to rule your decisions. Chasing your losses. -Investing what you cannot afford to lose. And finally, some time-tested wisdom from Wall Street: Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered every time. (Don’t be greedy!) We cannot overemphasize the risk involved in cryptocurrency investing. The potential to make huge gains over a short period of time does not come without risk. There is no doubt that significant players in the global financial markets are entering the cryptocurrency markets too. We are likely to witness more and more government authorities trying to regulate cryptocurrencies, hopefully to the overall benefit of a healthy market. It seems safe to say we will see cryptocurrencies become more mainstream due to the intense interest from the traditional financial industry and institutional investing community all over the world. What are better ways to successfully invest in cryptocurrencies? Which pitfalls should you avoid? Learn all on successful ICOs and STOs after reading the full lesson: UBAI.co How to start your STO/ICO campaign in 2019? Contact me via Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn to know more about our education: FacebookLinkedInInstagram
02-27 04:53 - 'Blockchain is a Lie — Just Another World Run by the Rich ???' (self.Bitcoin) by /u/dongchpp removed from /r/Bitcoin within 0-6min
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Blockchain is a Lie — Just Another World Run by the Rich
[link]1 Image: Bitcoin billionaires, The Winklevoss Twins Follow the Money More than just an alternative business model, blockchain represents ideology — a system in which the individual is no longer at the mercy of dominant institutions that control the flow of power, money, and data. If blockchain deteriorates into another world run by those who control the majority of the assets, it’s intent has been neglected and it has no reason to exist. Within chains managed by Proof-of-Work and Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithms, this is the reality. Users tout decentralization, rights of the individual, abandoning banks and more, but then fall into a system promoting the very same values they are rebelling against. PoW and DPoS are plutocracies in disguise. The former is at the mercy of firms that can afford the most hashing power, and the latter suppressed by those with the most currency. Whoever can afford to mine the most controls the flow in PoW systems — there’s no room for the individual with a starter setup having a say. Either invest a years salary or get lost. In the DPoS system, the irony is even more baffling: the people with the most currency ultimately get to write history. Is this still the blockchain world we want? Trading one system controlled by a ruling minority for another shouldn’t be in the discourse. Steadying Blockchains Ideological Path Blockchains growth will remain stunted unless the focus is shifted away from Proof-of-Work and Delegated Proof-of-Stake based consensus algorithms. The November BCH hashing wars that produced two new chains via hard fork, BCHABC and BSV, left many speculating over governing issues within the PoW world. Differences in principles have made this side of the blockchain vulnerable — anyone with a large enough following is able to hold everyone else hostage. Chain sustainability isn’t guaranteed due to the ease in which conflicting parties can force a hard fork. Those that preach DPoS put our future into the hands of 21 supernodes — corruption practically hard coded into the EOS genesis block. Everyone yearns for profit and power, making the have-nots pawns in the game controlled by those at the top. [link]2 A Blunt Account of Blockchain Management Blockchain governance is defined as follows: “The ways in which collective action can be achieved by public communities and key stakeholders — particularly those regarding the revision of past agreements. “ In view of the lack of a decentralized and de-identified digital platform supporting the “one person, one vote system”, the governance of the chain is often seen as a plutocracy — currency and computing power are king. According to an article written by Vitalik Buterin, blockchain governance systems must be innately anti-plutocratic. Not only is on-chain coin-based governance inconsistent with user interests, it is also antithetical to the ethos of public blockchains. The blockchain is for the public, to serve the public interest. It isn’t for cryptocurrency whales to get more rich. Cryptocurrency holdings (like wealth in global society) is highly concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people. The blockchain isn’t supposed to be owned by anyone… nevermind by a small group of super rich individuals. — Buterin The interests of those who hold the wealth and those who actually use the blockchain are inherently different. In theory, blockchain could provide an equal playing field where the world isn’t controlled by large institutions only acting for profit and belittling the rights of individuals. When power becomes concentrated by those holding the most currency or with the most hashing power, users who continue to praise these systems are working against their own interests. The culture of blockchain implies egalitarian management. Anything else must be abandoned. [link]3 Either we want it, or we don’t The current state of blockchain is a farce. Either we want a new system where power is decentralized, or we don’t. Pushing the ethics of the centralized systems that have shaped our world for the worse within the blockchain space only perpetuates the virus that is elitism — sucking world of its resources and milking the chain for every satoshi it’s got. The increased amount of ICOs in 2017 gave hope. Surely the competition would have promoted further developments — someone would have realised the bad traits trickling into blockchain- but only disappointment followed. What should have been the start of a blockchain renaissance, turned into a money grabbing free-for-all, with scams, poorly designed products, and reckless teams becoming the norm. But we do want it, we really do. We want the system as it was intended to be: quick, decentralized, egalitarian. A platform on which to build the next era of society. This stepping stone comes in the form of Bitconch. Backed by Turing and Nobel laureates, offering 120,000TPS, anti-plutocratic governance, and an ecosystem based on egalitarian values, Bitconch has the speed, security, and morals needed warm the Crypto Winter. Bitconch Solves the Issue of Governance The Proof-of-Reputation (PoR) consensus algorithm developed by Bitconch creates a quantified reputation value (Bit-R) based on three dimensions: social behavior, currency holding time, and community contribution. Users with reputations within the top 5% then have an opportunity to take part in the consensus. This system more accurately mirrors the natural world — individuals who are more trustworthy, contribute to their communities, and build relationships with those around them are incentivised to continue doing so. Money and the size of resources are no longer a consideration, which dissolves the power that the elite have over governing the chain and eliminates the possibility of bribery. Instead, there is room for devoted lower and middle class users to take part in the consensus, making the chain maintained by the people and for the people. The conflicting interests of currency holders and chain users, therefore, does not arise. Reputation makes for a conscientious ecosystem and reduced conflicts of interest supports ecosystem sustainability. [link]4 Bitconch Solves the Speed Bottleneck If the speed of the platform is not scaled to the needs of the users, usage will ultimately fall flat. A blockchain is meant to be used, and chains with slow speeds are simply not practical. BLAZE (Bitconch Ledger Access Zero-delay Extension) allows for the simultaneous verification of multiple blocks through factoring the operation into five unique yet concurrent phases — fetching data, decoding, hashing, stating the change, and finally writing data. When BLAZE is coupled with PoR, the Bitconch platform offers 120,000TPS — making it a platform able to support extensive amounts of traffic. [link]5 However, the current focus of the blockchain world should not be on pushing TPS speeds as high as possible. Developers and users alike have lost their way, once again falling victim to the very plutocracy that catalyzed the emergence of blockchain. The ideology producing these platforms urges for the rights of the individual over the concentration of power in a few. It doesn’t matter if the flow of money is controlled by a few institutions in the current global economy or by a few mining firms in the blockchain world — once power is taken from the individual, we must dissolve the system. ''' Blockchain is a Lie — Just Another World Run by the Rich ??? Go1dfish undelete link unreddit undelete link Author: dongchpp 1: i.redd**t/**lc*6ffg1j21*jp* 2: i**edd*it/l5cg*djjg*j*1.p*g 3: ****dd.it/ll**89kl*1j21.png 4: i.r***.it/92z*o21sg1*2*.p*g 5: i.*edd.*t*hsjrc0dtg1*21*p** Unknown links are censored to prevent spreading illicit content.
Crypto Infographic : Whether or not the IRS’ decision will facilitate or hurt current bitcoin holders depends on why they wanted bitcoins in the first place. For those hoping to profit directly from bitcoin’s fluctuations in value, this can be good news, as the principles for capital gains and losses are comparatively favorable to taxpayers. This characterization also upholds the method some high-profile bitcoin enthusiasts, as well as the Winklevoss twins, have reported their earnings within the absence of clear guidance.
What is an ETF? ETF stands for exchange traded fund, which is basically a security that tracks some underlying assets (for example equities, bonds or commodities). The issuer of the ETF takes custody of the underlying assets it tracks and then issues a number of shares that represent ownership. These shares can be easily traded (like stocks) and therefore remove a lot of barriers for investors who are willing to invest in this particular asset. If an ETF-issuer wants to create new shares, they turn to an authorized participant (AP). An AP is someone who is responsible for purchasing the underlying assets an ETF wants to hold. APs require a license from the ETF provider and then buys the underlying asset on behalf of the ETF-issuer. Subsequently, the AP sends these freshly purchased assets to the ETF-issuer and then ETF provider sends shares of the fund back to the AP. The value of these shares is equal to the assets the ETF provider just received. The redeeming process works in the opposite direction: AP sends ETF shares it wants to redeem to the ETF provider, which then returns the underlying assets back to the AP. There are times when the price of the ETC can become higher than the price of its underlying assets, or net asset value (NAV). Then the ETF is said to be trading at a premium. If the ETF is trading below NAV it is called trading at a discount. The AP arbitrages premiums and discounts to keep the market price tightly coupled to the NAV. What is the benefit of an BTC ETF? The shares of an ETF can easily be obtained and traded and lowers the barrier of entry for investors. With Bitcoin, these barriers are buying the asset and, most of all, safe storage of the asset. A BTC ETF enables technologically inexperienced investors to profit from BTC price movement without going through the hassle of securing their private keys. Hedge funds, pension funds, and 401ks can easily invest in this ETF, so we expect a lot of new capital to flow in Bitcoin. Increased capital inflow decreases volatility and therefore making BTC more stable. What types of Bitcoin ETFs are proposed? There are two types of Bitcoin ETF proposals: ETFs that Physically Hold Bitcoin (VanEck & SolidX ETF) ETFs that Purchase Bitcoin Derivatives (ProShares, GraniteShares, Direxion) ETFs that physically hold Bitcoin This type of ETF owns the underlying asset it tracks. Every share is backed by the real deal. Pros: low transaction costs tracks the performance of the underlying asset directly high liquidity Contras: counterparty risk (custody of the asset) ETFs can only be traded through specific daytimes where the BTC market is open 24 hours ETFs that purchase Bitcoin derivatives The second kind of ETF does not actually hold any Bitcoin. Instead, the ETF tries to mimic the performance of Bitcoin by trading Bitcoin futures, options, swaps, money market instruments. Pros: no worrying of custody of BTC, since these types of ETF don't hold BTC directly Contras: approximating the performance of Bitcoin active management risk active management cost margin call risk leveraged trading risk rollover risk ETFs that are holding physically Bitcoin are far superior to the derivatives-based one. And I expect the first type to havesignificant higher chances of approval. BTC-futures are only a few months old and I cannot imagine that the SEC will approve an ETF that tracks these highly speculative and brand new derivatives as underlying. Requirements of the SEC The U.S.- Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has certain requirements for an ETF to be approved: Custody solutions immune to manipulation sufficient liquidity coorect valuation of the NAV Current situation All derivatives-backed ETFs were rejected by the SEC on August 23. These ETFs were filed by ProShares and Direxion. The decision came down to the risk of market manipulation & fraud. The SEC can only approve an ETF that is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. The Winklevoss ETF (backed by the underlying asset) was rejected earlier this month. The main argument for rejection was the fact that the price determination of the NAV would only happen on the Gemini exchange (which is owned by the Winklevoss twins). The only remaining big proposal is the ETF from VanEck & SolidX which backed by the CBOE (Chicago Board of Options). The VanEck & SolidEck ETF proposal backed by the CBOE This proposal is vastly superior to prior ETF proposals and addresses most of the concerns the SEC has expressed when rejecting prior ETF applications. Reasons are: holds physical BTC backed by the CBOE, which is a very serious institution shares are big (25 BTC = 1 share), this excludes retail investors Involved parties: Fund: SolidX Bitcoin Shares. FileExchange: CBOE BZX Exchange. Trust/Fund IssueBTC Custodian: VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust. Trust’s SponsoManager: SolidX Management. Trust’s Administrator & Cash Custodian: BNY Mellon. Marketing Agent: Foreside Fund Services. Marketing: Van Eck Securities Corp. Comparison with a Gold ETF The SEC approved the streetTRACKS Gold Shares ETP even though the spot gold market were largely unregulated. On March 28, 2003, the first gold-backed ETF, developed by ETF Securities, was launched. It trades on the Australian stock exchange as the ETFS Physical GoldGOLD, +0.06% with assets under management at about $602 million. “We can certainly track the growth of gold ETFs since their invention, and see how investor interest in gold has growth significantly,” said Will Rhind, managing director of U.S. operations for ETF Securities. Globally, there are now 143 gold ETFs available, with the latest data showing assets under management at roughly $132 billion, he said. In the first few years after the first Gold ETF was introduced, the Gold price rose by over 600%. The ETF lowered the barrier of entry for many investors. Final deadline The Sec can postpone the final decision until 21. February 2019 and we expect them to do so. The developement of Bitcoin markets made big leaps forward since the filing for the Winklevoss ETF, for example we have now very advanced custody solutions (from Coinbase for example) and with increasing liquidtiy volatility decrease.
The Winklevoss twins have predicted that the value of bitcoin could go up another 20 times from its current price. Speaking to Fox Business, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who have been dubbed the ‘first bitcoin billionaires,’ challenged the digital currency’s critics to ‘put their money where their mouth is.’ During the interview, Cameron Winklevoss said that they believed that the ... Using the same framework to value both, the twins are essentially making the conclusion that Bitcoin is worth approximately 45 times more than the $12,000 price tag it currently sits at. At 45 times its current value, that’s a whopping price tag of $540,000 USD per Bitcoin. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of crypto exchange Gemini, have outlined their belief that Bitcoin will one day far surpass its current all-time high of almost $20,000 (£15,000, €16,800) and surge upwards of $500,000.. The twins first rose to popular prominence thanks to their portrayal in David Fincher’s film about Facebook, The Social Network. Bitcoin could be worth 40 times its current value one day, Cameron Winklevoss, one half of the famous twins, told CNBC on Wednesday.; The cryptocurrency had a market capitalization or value of ... The Winklevoss twins, infamous for their legal feud with Mark Zuckerberg over his alleged stealing of their original idea for the Facebook social network, could rank as the world’s richest Bitcoin investors. As Bitcoin touches $100 billion in value, don't forget that the Winklevoss twins are officially Bitcoin billionaires (1% BTC supply)
Bitcoin Will One Day Be Worth 40 Times Price It Is Now ...
BITCOIN IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE! 2020 Could Create The Perfect Storm for Bitcoin's Price - Duration: 11:12. Altcoin Daily 94,097 views. 11:12. Winklevoss twins explain the future of Bitcoin ... This News will be the best news if the US SEC will approve this ETF Bitcoin Hearing on 11th March then the Price will be for 1 BTC = $1645 Speculation about the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF ... Dec.12 -- Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss, co-founders at Gemini, discuss the positives of bitcoin, the cryptocurrency's potential to disrupt gold, and the potential for a further ... ️ Leverage OPM (Other People's Money): http://opm.cryptonewsalerts.net Bitcoin Billionaires, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, believe weakness in the U.S. fina... Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are known for many things. Billionaire status. Taking on a social media Goliath. And as early bitcoin investors. If you ask them...
