Is Bitcoin the Next Big Thing?

[Edwin]

You actually have to transfer your bitcoin into these places to trade them. Now if an exchange 'lost' some bitcoin, they could try and get away with keeping that quiet.

Thanks for clarifying that. I wonder who shoulders the risk before transactions have a chance to get settled on the blockchain (I'm assuming that still can take hours)?

 

[dee]

Etoro is a strange one isn't it... you 'buy' bitcoin, but can only transfer out in cash. How do we even know that they own a single bitcoin?

It used to be CFD's ( of which shorts still are obviously) but since october or november i think it was they stated that they actually hold the coin for buys. There's even been rumours of wallets for a while but suspect that wont happen for a bit as they are stil dealing with backlog of new signups

 

[ausername]

There have been a lot of people asking questions about coinbase in recent months.

 

[Edwin]

BTW, it's a minor coin with a low market cap, but you have to wonder what's going on with XPlay...
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/xplay/

Up 32% in the last 24 hours, while every other currency has tanked.

Could that be the most recent pump-and-dump, as we were discussing a few pages back?

 

[ausername]

Thanks for clarifying that. I wonder who shoulders the risk before transactions have a chance to get settled on the blockchain (I'm assuming that still can take hours)?

Can't you remember MtGox?

That was an exchange... everybody lost their coins somehow. Not really got to the bottom of where they went, there were a few suicides.

They recovered a proportion of them and people can put in a claim form, at some stage people will get about 20% of their coins back (i think it is 20%).

If they ever get to the bottom of Mtgox it would make a great movie.

 

[Edwin]

There have been a lot of people asking questions about coinbase in recent months.

Not as many questions as about Bitfinex, though. Tether's not yet imploded, but if that turns out to be a scam then it will be like falling off a cliff.

 

[Edwin]

Can't you remember MtGox?

That was an exchange... everybody lost their coins somehow. Not really got to the bottom of where they went, there were a few suicides.

They recovered a proportion of them and people can put in a claim form, at some stage people will get about 20% of their coins back (i think it is 20%).

If they ever get to the bottom of Mtgox it would make a great movie.

Actually, it was more than just an exchange, it was operating as a vault too. In fact, at the time it collapsed, it was the most popular place to store Bitcoin in the world.

 

[RobM]

Seems to be accelerating now. 900 euros down since this morning.

 

[ausername]

It used to be CFD's ( of which shorts still are obviously) but since october or november i think it was they stated that they actually hold the coin for buys. There's even been rumours of wallets for a while but suspect that wont happen for a bit as they are stil dealing with backlog of new signups

I traded on etoro for a bit.

Then lost my rag at one of the sales people and closed my account. They were calling me every 3 days trying to get me to 'invest' more money, felt very scammy.

I paid into the account via paypal.... then when I tried to withdraw I selected paypal as a payment method. They only returned 10% of my money to paypal, and made me wait ages for the other 90% via bank transfer.

Will never use them again. No idea why they weren't happy to transfer money to paypal, but willing to take it from paypal, but it gave me an uneasy feeling about them as a company.

 

[Edwin]

I didn't notice anyone talking about this over the weekend...
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/02/t...ckchain-retracts-on-bitcoin-mining-operation/

 

[ausername]

Seems to be accelerating now. 900 euros down since this morning.

I'm a bit torn between being gleeful and "I told you so", especially because I can't stand the Winklevoss weirdos and I'm getting sick of hearing about crypto everywhere on the internet every day.

.... Or just feeling sorry for the many people who will have purchased at market top with money they can't really afford to lose... a crash = people topping themselves.

 

[dee]

I traded on etoro for a bit.

Then lost my rag at one of the sales people and closed my account. They were calling me every 3 days trying to get me to 'invest' more money, felt very scammy.

I paid into the account via paypal.... then when I tried to withdraw I selected paypal as a payment method. They only returned 10% of my money to paypal, and made me wait ages for the other 90% via bank transfer.

Will never use them again. No idea why they weren't happy to transfer money to paypal, but willing to take it from paypal, but it gave me an uneasy feeling about them as a company.

I have my XRP on there. Spreads are horrendous and its taking an age to get paypouts due to backlog. The payment stuff comes up a lot on the feeds. It seems that on withdrawal, funds have to put back to original funds source, with any profit being sent to a destination of choice. It's to do with money laundering according a lot of the replies i see. I think you can stipulate paypal though once youve been verified.

 

[Murray]

II'm getting sick of hearing about crypto everywhere on the internet every day.

You seem to like talking about it

 

[bonusmedia]

Some people are upset and blaming people who've questioned the bubble for spreading 'FUD'.

Whether or not other people get rich from speculating is no skin off my nose.
I've never owned any crypto but that doesn't exclude me from commenting on a global phenomenon.

There's a difference between expecting a crash and wanting one!

 

[ausername]

You seem to like talking about it

Touché.

I'm excited about the prospect of a brewing sh*tstorm. Not because I want to see normal individuals burnt of course (although not my problem).

This appears to have been caused by worries about Tether/Bitfinex.... and people are liquidating in case this is another Mtgox situation?

The mtgox case intrigues me... because there are 650,000 bitcoins out there somewhere, now belonging to whoever stole them. That's almost $5 billion even at today's prices.

Somebody belongs on the Forbes rich list... but can't 'out' themselves, because they'd then be heading to jail and are responsible for a few suicides.

Its an intriguing case because if Mark Karpeles gets convicted of embezzlement (currently on bail in Japan), they can't seize his assets because if he still has them they won't know how to find them. But presumably if convicted he'll one day attempt to access his loot.

So this stuff does interest me, I love any good international crime story with film rights potential.

 

[ausername]

Some people are upset and blaming people who've questioned the bubble for spreading 'FUD'.

Its not like a few people on a ccTLD domaining forum are going to influence the price is it.... the Litecoin founder cashing in $300m worth of Litecoin at the crest of the wave, and the opaque business practices of Tether/Bitfinex mean that absolutely no FUD spreading is necessary.

 

[ian]

This appears to have been caused by worries about Tether/Bitfinex.... and people are liquidating in case this is another Mtgox situation?

The Tether stories are nothing new, they get rolled out each time the media want to spread fud. Tether has always been a risk, but at $3bil, consider the entire market cap, it isn't going to cause that much of a shift in the market. Bitconnect had a similar market cap, there was little reaction by the charts.

This is just the usual Jan/Feb downturn, media coverage, government attacks etc that sadly have caught up the new investors expecting 'get rich quick' and now heading for the doors. The entire market is being played by the whales at the cost of the little fish; eventually the selling will stop.

 

[ausername]

The Tether stories are nothing new, they get rolled out each time the media want to spread fud. Tether has always been a risk, but at $3bil, consider the entire market cap, it isn't going to cause that much of a shift in the market. Bitconnect had a similar market cap, there was little reaction by the charts.

This is just the usual Jan/Feb downturn, media coverage, government attacks etc that sadly have caught up the new investors expecting 'get rich quick' and now heading for the doors. The entire market is being played by the whales at the cost of the little fish; eventually the selling will stop.

I read a post on Reddit which argued that it isn't the % of market cap that you need to consider.... its the % of cash actually injected into Bitcoin..... and Tether accounts for 20% of that. So its huge.

Its 20% of the value, not 3%. I'll try and find the post so this makes more sense.

 

[ausername]

The Tether stories are nothing new

My understanding is that their independent auditor walking out... and the subpoena from the 'Commodity Futures Trading Commission' was a very recent development? As in, last few days?

Bitcoin price has fallen almost 30% since the subpoena, so it appears to be a significant factor?

Apparently about $10 bn of actual real dollars has gone into crypto, of which $2bn may be completely fake 'money' called 'tether', with $2bn not going into crypto at all but lost to the inventors of an elaborate scam (alleged / speculated).

Decision bitcoin owners need to make appears to be:

a) Hold bitcoin and wait for price to rise if Bitfinex prove that the Tether is backed 1-1 with capital.

or...

b). Sell now, before it collapses... buy back in the future. Lots of people choosing this option, hence the rapid fall in price.

$2bn evaporating would be huge, its 20% of the fiat money currently believed to be in the markets. Not 3% of market cap, which is a piss poor metric.

 

[ian]

I don't know for sure, but ultimately Tether is traded like any other crypto currency, so the market cap is how much is in circulation versus traded. I don't trust Tether, I cannot believe for a second they are backed by 'actual money in the bank', but then aside from the concept behind it, no other project in cryptoland is either, the only difference being that for most projects, they state that the coins/tokens invested in have no value. All we as investors are doing is putting our money into projects we believe can achieve mass scale adoption and as a result, we are rewarded through value transfer by whatever means that takes place, but in the mean time, it is nothing but a roller coaster ride of trying to make profit on the way up (or down). FYI, I don't hold 'value added' coins, that imv, have real world usability or carry the tech that others can piggy back off. For me, it is a case of investing in the technology, not the fanfare.