Is Bitcoin the Next Big Thing?

[dee]

The idea of purchasing a £20,000 car in bitcoin, and the car then being worth £10,000 a few years later.... and the bitcoin expended being worth £100,000....

That remains the flaw in my opinion. A currency that people are afraid to spend?

I think that blockchain technology can and probably will form the basis upon which transactions are carried out in the future, in fact a transaction tax could be collected! Could revolutionise taxation, how about just 5% of everything any human ever spends on anything?

But that we'll still be using pounds, dollars and euros, and that central banks will still have some control over supply and set inflation targets and interest rates.

I think were rapidly heading towards a cashless society . I also think there will have to be a fundamental shift with respect to the way currency works. There are all kind of theories as to what will work, Universal Basic Income etc

I think the basic problem we face with fiat is the tendancy to hoard and therefore there be a lack of liquidity. Were in a situation were the top 5% odd own as much as the bottom 95 % . That will have to reset at some point.

 

[ausername]

"Were in a situation were the top 5% odd own as much as the bottom 95 % . That will have to reset at some point"

That's because they own the means of production, e.g. land, not because they have a big vault full of cash.

No matter what means of currency you have, it won't change the fact that they a small percentage own 70% of the land in the UK,

Also those 'rich lists' etc are always really flawed.... they have people allegedly worth billions in them who would probably struggle to write a cheque for $50m, because often its 'equity' based on the market cap of their companies.

But of course if they started a sell off of equity.... the value of the shares would drop dramatically. E.g. Jeff Bezos is allegedly worth $95.7bn, but almost all the value of his Amazon shares.

Is there a business large enough to buy Amazon for $430 billion? He could only convert that into cash by putting sell orders in with wall street, in dribs and drabs, and when the CEO and majority shareholder of a business starts selling off his shares... what do you think happens to the price? It tanks of course....

Same actually applies to somebody who owns 1,000 properties in the same town actually. Just by virtue of reducing competition they are increasing the price, what happens if they try and have a sell off? Lots of supply = falling price.

A rich list of people with the most cash in their bank would be interesting, but then you could argue that it would be a list of unwise rich people.... wealthy people are usually too smart to hold too much cash when it could be working for them in real estate or on the markets.

I think these Corbynite style claims of x% owning x% are highly flawed, when much of that wealth is always hypothetical.

I think power through control of means of production is the true wealth. Somebody owning $1 billion worth of Twitter is much poorer than somebody who owns $1 billion worth of fertile agricultural land, in my opinion.

 

[dee]

@ausername

dont disagree. Hence my point about the lack of liquidity. Its liquidity that drives a healthy economy

 

[ausername]

I think ending the competitive disadvantage that corporations get over small businesses would be a start, particularly when it comes to corporation tax avoidance measures etc.

I don't care what percentage corporation tax is, just isn't right that the coffee shop owned by Bob Smith on the high street has to compete with a Starbucks next door which can charge less because it can afford to employ a team of global tax specialists.

Also think an unoccupied property levy should be introduced to stop people using property purely as an investment. Either rent it out or pay 1% of the market value each year to the treasury.... on a £1m flat that means a £10,000 penalty, if its worth £1.2m a year later then a £12,000 penalty, etc etc.

I'm not a fan of new taxes and endless number of new laws, but I do think when something creates a problem then those who create it should be part of the solution. The taxpayer has to pay more housing benefit and build more housing association properties as a result of unoccupied properties, so the owners of those properties should pick up some slack..... they can't argue that they are "creating jobs" by leaving a property empty for years, not ongoing ones anyway (short term ones building for the investor market perhaps).

 

[ian]

As I see it, Bitcoin isn't sustainable as a currency that will be widely used for buying daily items or transferring between friends and family; it is used as a vehicle to convert money between fiat and crypto. For that reason it will remain for a long time as the 'gold' of crypto. It is already a nightmare trying to convert between BTC and other alt coins and understand exactly how much it was in $ or £. Can you imagine buying a drink from a shop and it costing you 0.0000004547 BTC, it just doesn't work imo.

There are seemingly much better altcoins out there that do a faster, smarter, cheaper transfer of funds with more realistic (higher volume) max supply; such as Litecoin and Dash. They just don't carry the "headline" tag of bitcoin (says a lot for being first to market).

In the end, will all payments be made via some form of crypto, probably, but it is blockchain technology that is the end result, and that will simply be acquired by banking institutions etc to facilitate much faster and cheaper transfers than we currently have.

(just my view, I'm a 3 day old amateur to all this, but perhaps that is the best time to have an opinion, before my mind is clouded by darta!!!).

 

[ausername]

Blockchain technology is also potentially useful for much more than just a 'currency'.

.... in both the UK and US election there were suggestions of voter fraud, including students voting twice in the UK.

Imagine if we used blockchains to vote in an election using a ridiculously long and complicated encrypted code! Nobody can currently turn 1 bitcoin into 2, so that will stop people voting twice!

Could revolutionize democracy.

It also wouldn't cost many millions to hold a referendum. Could have a referendum every week on a different issue, using your 'vote wallet' or something. No messing around counting into piles (another means of fraud and error), just get instant result.

 

[ausername]

Unfortunately blockchainelections.com not available, so that's not an original thought!

 

[ian]

Agreed, blockchain is the future of so much, that the big long term winners are likely to be those developing the very best solutions for others to acquire.

 

[ausername]

This is BBC Election Night 2025 sponsored by Betfred, I'm David Dimblebey, its my 100th birthday and I'm about to announce the first result from the UK's first ever blockchain election.... oh fuck, the micro-motherboard of my ispectacles computer has just failed, we will be delayed by a few minutes whilst my production assistant uses her wrist tablet to ask Alexa 7.0 to print another on our 3D printer and deliver it to me by drone. We'll cut to commercials in the interim, we don't want to but you lot didn't want to pay license fees and I don't pull these all nighters for nothing!

 

[Admin]

Have any of you guys held on to Bitcoin if you bought at that price?

I sold at £1000 for the most part as that was the amount I had hoped for when I bought a couple at £350ish

I do look at it now and of course I think I should have held on, but realistically I would never have been able to keep hold above £2000

Yeah Ive still got my bitcoins that i bought in dec 2015 for £200 odd. I've been spending them ever since on everything imaginable and Im not afraid to spend them because they are appreciating, they appreciate far faster than I can spend them and spending them makes it real. It gives it the use it needs.

 

[dee]

I think were just at the beginning of the curve on blockchain. There are a whole raft of uses. Media copyright and rights tracking is one huuuuuge potential. Smart contracts aswell.

 

[Murray]

Yeah Ive still got my bitcoins that i bought in dec 2015 for £200 odd. I've been spending them ever since on everything imaginable and Im not afraid to spend them because they are appreciating, they appreciate far faster than I can spend them and spending them makes it real. It gives it the use it needs.

Did you get a few?

I guess for those who were brave enough to get quite a few it would have been easier to sell along the way and maybe hold on to a couple.

 

[Murray]

I was just reading this old thread - https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/bitcoins-in-2014.121894/

Former member Monkey talking about buying 10-20 at a time, I wonder if he has held most of them, gamble has worked out for him if so

 

[Admin]

Did you get a few?

I guess for those who were brave enough to get quite a few it would have been easier to sell along the way and maybe hold on to a couple.

Yeah I bought quite a lot. Just 3 times over the 2 years I have scaled out and back in again. Where I keep them I can sell to USD and just hold the balance there until I want to buy back, I've scaled in and out successfully 3 times when its looked peaky. The last time was in the last 2 weeks. Its worked each time to the extent Ive been able to buy more coins and wire some funds to my account, again making it feel real.

 

[Admin]

The scaling in and out is tough with the company i am with because its not a trading account and the spread is savage, i lose like 80 - 100 dollars per bitcoin each way. So it has to be done for a move of 500+ dollars IMO.

 

[dog]

Biz quadruples value overnight by adding 'Blockchain' to name

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/...alue_over_night_by_adding_blockchain_to_name/

 

[Systreg]

I've always though Bitcoin was a bit dodgy, I couldn't really get my head around people buying something that isn't actually something, sort of thing, if you know what I mean.

Plus, with all the hacking and hundreds of millions of coins regularly vanishing, I'd think what's the point in it, if you can invest in it and then lose it all to a hacker, or a company pretending they've been hacked and pocketing the coins.

As time has gone by, I can see it's being used more and more regularly, and seems to be readily accepted as a form of payment, so I'm thinking now might be the time to get involved in it, as I'd probably accept those as payment for any domain names I list for sale.

Despite looking at quite a few sites, I'm still a bit bewildered with it all, like where exactly to get a wallet from, I don't know which might be dodgy or not. I've also read about some places wanting 3 forms of ID/bills, others that want you to take a selfie holding the ID's etc, sounds a bit over the top that.

I wouldn't be able to provide numerous ID's or household bills, all I have is a passport and one household bill for electricity, there are no other bills here, so I'm not sure how to get around that, as it seems you need those things to be able to cash Bitcoins in, is that true of all places where you cash in?

 

[ian]

For the most part, the easiest way into BTC would be using a simple exchange that offers both trading, and a wallet, in an easy to use interface. For that, almost all I would suspect will recommend coinbase.com, which has been growing at a massive rate recently. Online wallets to hold crypto are generally considered risky because of hacks etc, but if your initial plan is to dip your toe in the water, then coinbase is as good a place as any to hold. Longer term, look at offline options for holding, like Ledger Nano.

For identification, most generally require you to take a photo of your driving license (or passport), some require you to take a photo of you holding the ID. For most, the automatic verification completes in 2-3 minutes (did for me), but otherwise it is manual and takes longer (week or so). Wasn't very comfortable with providing such details, but most require it, so I wanted to sign up with coinbase who had the best rep.

If you or anyone else decide to give coinbase a go, can you use my referral as we'll both receive a whopping $10 in BTC (https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a0ae152a8f45e00c8b80406).

Beyond the basics, if you want to trade ETH and LTC too, then coinbase also offer that, but for 'alt' coins, you'd need to use the more complex exchanges. Coinbase is typically used as a vehicle for buying the main three coins (with fiat - most don't offer this), that can then be used to by other coins. For other exchanges, I personally like (or can tolerate) Bitfinex and Bittrex.

 

[dee]

Got to say.... and just my opinion, but i'd hold off right now. It's looking very very overbought at the moment. Even though it doesnt seem to hold to standard trading patterns and is a law unto itself, its still due a correction I reckon. Even if only down to 9k or so. The current push seems to be based on world news (Zimbabwe for instance where anyone with money is buying as currency likely to dump) and other people starting to use it as a new form of safe haven (traditionally gold ) and the press having a big push which has encouraged a large amount of small investors getting on board with small amounts. Thats fab, but also means these same people are twitchy and will panic dump and take profit at the first sign of a drop.

I guess if your in it long term then wont make much difference though.

 

[dog]

I thought BTC was overbought at $200 - $300.

Got to say.... and just my opinion, but i'd hold off right now. It's looking very very overbought at the moment. Even though it doesnt seem to hold to standard trading patterns and is a law unto itself, its still due a correction I reckon. Even if only down to 9k or so. The current push seems to be based on world news (Zimbabwe for instance where anyone with money is buying as currency likely to dump) and other people starting to use it as a new form of safe haven (traditionally gold ) and the press having a big push which has encouraged a large amount of small investors getting on board with small amounts. Thats fab, but also means these same people are twitchy and will panic dump and take profit at the first sign of a drop.

I guess if your in it long term then wont make much difference though.