Bitcoin

[Folster]

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This is public knowledge and has always been. This should be priced in, but nothing makes sense with bitcoin.

 

[Devilmaycare]

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April 20th sounds like a good day for something crypto to happen to me. Bicycle day the day before and then 4-20 hits. I think those drugs help you think something with no backing has value.

 

[Folster]

I still can't comprehend bitcoin and crypto, but I'm increasingly convinced it will play a role in a future financial collapse or or at the very least exasperate it as institutional investors roll in and stable coins gobble up treasuries.

Stable coins have become an interesting partner for the US government as other nations start divesting from the US dollar. I've read that stable coins only account for 2% of Treasury purchases now, but what happens at 10-20%?

I still haven't seen a convincing use case outside of HODL. We've seen how it reacts in a bear market and it still hasn't experienced a prolonged bear market or a stiff recession. I thought FTX was the death knell for crypto, but I was wrong and have been wrong about crypto i.e. bitcoin since the beginning.

I'm still not buying.

 

[elindholm]

I still can't comprehend bitcoin and crypto, but I'm increasingly convinced it will play a role in a future financial collapse or or at the very least exasperate it as institutional investors roll in and stable coins gobble up treasuries.

Stable coins have become an interesting partner for the US government as other nations start divesting from the US dollar. I've read that stable coins only account for 2% of Treasury purchases now, but what happens at 10-20%?

I still haven't seen a convincing use case outside of HODL. We've seen how it reacts in a bear market and it still hasn't experienced a prolonged bear market or a stiff recession. I thought FTX was the death knell for crypto, but I was wrong and have been wrong about crypto i.e. bitcoin since the beginning.

I'm still not buying.

I'm in the same boat. Yes, it would have been nice to buy in cheap and be sitting on millions now, but that's the way it goes with highly speculative investments. There is still no intrinsic value and no reason for it to appreciate.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Yeah, I have about $30k in, mostly in Ethereum, and I just finally started making some money. Tempted to buy the dips, because it always goes back up so far. I still view it as funny money and my plan is just to let it roll for now.

 

[Folster]

There is still no intrinsic value and no reason for it to appreciate.

It seems the only reason it is appreciating is current and expected demand continuing to grow. At some point everybody who wants it will have it. Then what?

 

[elindholm]

It seems the only reason it is appreciating is current and expected demand continuing to grow. At some point everybody who wants it will have it. Then what?

I wonder whether the software could support "volume discounts." Psychologically, there's a big difference between paying $1000 for a tiny fraction of coin versus paying $1B for that tiny fraction times a million. I can imagine that we get to a point where the price per unit varies considerably according to how many units are being transacted.

 

[Folster]

I wonder whether the software could support "volume discounts." Psychologically, there's a big difference between paying $1000 for a tiny fraction of coin versus paying $1B for that tiny fraction times a million. I can imagine that we get to a point where the price per unit varies considerably according to how many units are being transacted.

I know gold coins work that way. You pay more per ounce for the smaller coins.

It's just crazy to me that people are paying 113,000 US dollars for one bitcoin. Imagine if you couldn't buy fractional coins and you had to save up to buy one. Forking over $113K for some blockchain coding. We were right about NFTs; maybe bitcoin is just going to take longer.

 

[oaken1]

I know gold coins work that way. You pay more per ounce for the smaller coins.

It's just crazy to me that people are paying 113,000 US dollars for one bitcoin. Imagine if you couldn't buy fractional coins and you had to save up to buy one. Forking over $113K for some blockchain coding. We were right about NFTs; maybe bitcoin is just going to take longer.

I'm still leary of coins. Back when Bitcoin first came out i acquired a few coins by joining some sites and such... iirc i got 6 coins total. But at the time they were worth nothing so i never stuck with the sites because they didnt provide good information on traditional investments...
kicking myself in the ass these days because those coins could be my retirement fund if i could ever find them.

 

[Folster]

Bitcoin seems to have lost some luster for the moment. It's down 50% from its all time high. I think much of its run up to $126K was due to ETF availability. Investors have since seen bitcoin get trounced by gold while speculators watched AI, chip, and memory stocks skyrocket.

Bitcoin is
- not a stable currency
- not a store of value
- not an inflation hedge
- no longer a risk-on asset.

 

[Folster]

Is anybody paying attention to Saylor's MSTR and preferreds STRC?

Saylor launched a preferred share class, STRC that he publicly advertised as stable banking/money market alternative. It has a par value of 100 and pays a whopping 11.5% dividend. One of many problems is that MSTR no longer has significant revenue so the entire scheme is built upon the expectation that bitcoin will continue to go up, 30% a year as estimated by Saylor. What could go wrong?

Well bitcoin is down 50%, MSTR shares are down over 70%, and STRC is down 11% from its stated par value. So Saylor now has to choose between diluting MSTR share holders or selling precious bitcoins to pay the dividend. And it looks like he'll have to increase the dividend above the already insane 11.5% to try to get shares back to par value. Keep in mind that Madoff's Ponzi "returned" 12% per year.

What an absolute scam. If something is yielding 3x the risk free rate, it has a lot of risk. The fact he sold it as a bank or money market is criminal.