I think with the progress of blockchain, there seems to a growing number of altcoins with features much better than bitcoin. Example: Virie with its distributed exchange network and escrow system. So maybe bitcoin isn’t the best crypto out there.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-early-as-bitcoin-slide-spurs-viability-fears

Bitcoin’s no longer boring.

After months of tranquility that became the envy of equity investors, The biggest cryptocurrency roared back into the public consciousness this week with the biggest sell-off since August, another fork and a cameo in a major semiconductor earnings report. Some digital asset industry pundits have already begun referring to it as the crypto winter.
...
the price could fall to $1,500, which would indicate another drop of more than 70 percent from current levels.

https://breakermag.com/police-calle...coin-rat-staring-at-the-federal-reserve-bank/

 

Cryptocurrency 2018

OK, it's still a good investment in Venezuela.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PCPIPCH@WEO/WEOWORLD/VEN

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-early-as-bitcoin-slide-spurs-viability-fears


https://breakermag.com/police-calle...coin-rat-staring-at-the-federal-reserve-bank/

Also from the Bloomberg article:

“There’s a small chance that, it’s difficult to estimate, that something really bad could happen related to Bitcoin Cash that could then impact the entire crypto market."

Maybe bitcoin isn’t the answer. Perhaps some other coin has better potential?

 

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/decentralized-cryptocurrency-in-your-dreams-e5682a9d7db

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/20/reg...r-bitcoin-price-was-propped-up-illegally.html

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-close-to-becoming-worthless-2018-12-03

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u...tion-during-bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-2018-12-06

“It is clear that’s what supposed to be a democratic process was not, it was hijacked by the ABC camp,” said Lawry Trevor-Deutsch, VP of Corporate Affairs at UnitedCorp in a call with MarketWatch, adding it was clear the parties took control of more than 50% of the network during the upgrade.

UnitedCorp alleges Ver colluded with Jihan Wu of Bitmain to reallocate Bitmain servers from the Bitcoin Core network. “The above described actions were intentional and clearly planned in advance, with Bitmain organizing deployment (or actually redeployment) of up to 90,000 Bitmain Antminer S9 servers in early November,” according to court documents. Bitmain is the largest manufacturer of bitcoin mining hardware.

Since the Nov. 15 hard fork, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, -2.41% has fallen more than 73% to $116, an all-time low. Over the same period, bitcoin, BTCUSD, +0.18% the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has fallen around 35%.

 

Extreme profits?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-11/yep-bitcoin-was-a-bubble-and-it-popped

It seems like every asset bubble has a famous anecdote of someone claiming, right at the top, that a crash is impossible. In the stock-market bubble leading up to the Great Depression, it was economist Irving Fisher, who declared in the New York Times that stocks “have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau” a few days before a collapse that would see stocks lose 89 percent of their value. In 2007 and 2008, many optimistic pronouncements by current National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow turned out to be disastrously wrong.
...
In the great Bitcoin bubble of late 2017, the honor goes to John McAfee, founder of computer security company McAfee LLC, and passionate cryptocurrency evangelist. On Dec 7, 2017, he wrote:

Bitcoin now at $16,600.00. Those of you in the old school who believe this is a bubble simply have not understood the new mathematics of the Blockchain, or you did not cared enough to try. Bubbles are mathematically impossible in this new paradigm. So are corrections and all else

Instead, it seems overwhelmingly likely that Bitcoin’s spectacular rise and fall was due not to rational optimism followed by sensible pessimism, but to some kind of aggregate market irrationality — a combination of herd behavior, cynical speculation and the entry into the market of a large number of new, poorly informed investors.

It was this latter type of investor who got burned. There is no shortage of horror stories about people around the word who poured their modest life’s savings into what looked like a sure bet, only to see it vanish — some of it into the pockets of Bitcoin’s early-investor aristocracy, some of it into thin air.

 

I finally figured out why this whole thread was uncomfortable to me. It's right there in the title: One doe not invest in bitcoin, one speculates in bitcoin. This may seem like a distinction without a difference, but there is no underlying value generation (revenue, cash flow) from bitcoin. You are purely betting on the perceived future value of something, something that has no intrinsic value. The same can be said of all currencies of course.

 

https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9563-wallet_fail#t=190

 

And the winner of the top 2018 cryptocurrency scam is ...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/exit-scammers-run-off-with-660-million-in-ico-earnings/

A Vietnamese cryptocurrency company Modern Tech launched an ICO for its Pincoin token, raising $660 million from approximately 32,000 people. The company first ran the Pincoin ICO, promising constant returns to investors, and then launched another token, iFan (a social network token for celebrities). Picoin investors first received cash from their investment and then the team began paying out rewards to Pincoin investors in iFan tokens.

Then the team disappeared.

 

A tale of woe.

 

https://www.coindesk.com/quadriga-creditor-protection-filing

https://www.scribd.com/document/398...60149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate

$180 million in investors money gone with a lost password or a massive criminal ripoff.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190131221527/https://www.quadrigacx.com/

Short version:

“Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere. I am forced to proceed to the next stage of the recovery plan - spending long periods at numerous luxury villas around the globe, tirelessly searching for the location of that elusive password! Do not despair... I will not halt my efforts, no matter how many decades it may take, until your funds are completely spent. I mean RECOVERED. Yes, recovered is the word I was looking for.“

 

https://www.coindesk.com/quadriga-creditor-protection-filing

https://www.scribd.com/document/398...60149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate
View attachment 169454
$180 million in investors money gone with a lost password or a massive criminal ripoff.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190131221527/https://www.quadrigacx.com/

Short version:

“Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere. I am forced to proceed to the next stage of the recovery plan - spending long periods at numerous luxury villas around the globe, tirelessly searching for the location of that elusive password! Do not despair... I will not halt my efforts, no matter how many decades it may take, until your funds are completely spent. I mean RECOVERED. Yes, recovered is the word I was looking for.“

If you are going to steal from someone, go big or go home.

 

 

Oh yeah this is going to end well. I guess the banks didn't do enough damage with the mortgage crisis.


https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/jp-...d-cryptocurrency-to-transform-payments--.html

 

Oh yeah this is going to end well. I guess the banks didn't do enough damage with the mortgage crisis.


https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/jp-...d-cryptocurrency-to-transform-payments--.html

It's just a digital proxy dollar (trusted IOU) , not a independent cryptocurrency with its own trades and markets. The 'blockchain/crypto' element here is irreverent hype to the need for trust in the parties transferring cash.

 

Read about some guy who controlled $190M in crypto currency. He was in some country (Africa I think) starting an orphanage (I think) and died. No one has the password, so that "money" is in limbo. Looks like all of the "investors" are going to be left holding an empty bag...

 

Read about some guy who controlled $190M in crypto currency. He was in some country (Africa I think) starting an orphanage (I think) and died. No one has the password, so that "money" is in limbo. Looks like all of the "investors" are going to be left holding an empty bag...

https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/anyone-invested-in-bit-coins.135867/page-9#post-1352872

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/quadrigacx-1.5019176

 

https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/anyone-invested-in-bit-coins.135867/page-9#post-1352872

Thanks for point that out. I don't really care enough about the topic to read most of the posts in this thread...