OT: Ray, how's your Bitcoin investment going?

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by mistermo

Newbie here. I've heard there's an element of anonymity that appeals to many, and there's a "ledger", whatever it means in the crypto context. How can one be anonymous if they're receiving a 1099? A few years ago our company IT system was seized by malevolent outsiders. They promised to reinstate after a bitcoin ransom, which was paid. Somehow they were able to keep that anonymous.

I listened to this podcast which I found fascinating, but it triggered more questions than answers. RadioLab The Ceremony Are there any documentaries or crypto for dummies that one can recommend?

You are only anonymous in the blockchain for crypto. However, you are not anonymous to the service you are using to transact with bitcoin. This is the part I always found to be complete handwaving.

The United States, European Union or any other legitimate Sovereign has a right to control the use of it's currency. If you are using another currency to originate the purchase of bitcoin or another cyrpto, the US has imposed certain KYC requirements to prevent Anti-money Laundering and other illegal activity.

If you want to just buy crypto and never convert back to a hard currency, be my guest. I think you'd be a moron to believe TETHER or other tokens are actually fully convertible.

If you sell as a US person and cash out your crypto, that should be a reportable event. if you try to do all of this anonymously as a US Person and an exchange/broker assists you, you and they are all guilty of money laundering / tax evasion. This is why the big players like COINBASE, Digital Galaxy etc are all reporting to the IRS. Comply or be shut down as a criminal enterprise.

As I see it, crypto is in a race to become legitmate and regulated by governments before the governments decide it just facilitates money laundering for criminals and shuts it all down.

(The only two business cases I see now are for speculation and money laundering.)

[Tony T]

52,000
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...drop-since-feb
“Several online reports attributed the plunge to speculation the U.S. Treasury may crack down on money laundering that’s carried out through digital assets.”

[fiamme red]

Below 50,000 for now

[commandcomm]

Most Crypto is slumping row. Besides the US treasury, I think there has been an overall sell off for cash. There are people that purchased Doge at .003 and probably sold out when it went to .40 last week. If you bought $10,000 in Doge at .003 that turned into $1,000,000 last week.

[PQJ]

One crypto exchange's position paper on how sovereign governments might seek to interpose themselves into the crypto supply chain . . .

[fiamme red]

I've always thought of Bitcoin mining as something that's done in faraway places, so I was surprised to learn of a Bitcoin mining facility along Seneca Lake (one of the Finger Lakes of New York State):

https://wskg.org/news/torrey-plannin...n-mining-plan/

PENN YAN, NY (WSKG) — Despite protest from environmental activists, the Town of Torrey Planning Board gave the go-ahead for Greenidge Generation to move forward with expanding the Bitcoin mining operation at its facility along Seneca Lake.

In a four to one vote, the board approved both a negative declaration of need for an environmental review and the site plan for Greenidge to erect four structures that would house data processing equipment used to “mine” cryptocurrency...

[buddybikes]

Is the party over? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/bitc...urrencies.html

[bronk]

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

Is the party over? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/bitc...urrencies.html

It's the morning after. The quickest way to get rid of a hangover is to drink some more. Long term, not the best but we've all done it.

[Tony T]

Originally Posted by commandcomm

Most Crypto is slumping row. Besides the US treasury, I think there has been an overall sell off for cash. There are people that purchased Doge at .003 and probably sold out when it went to .40 last week. If you bought $10,000 in Doge at .003 that turned into $1,000,000 last week.

Unless, of course, it was sold at $25,000.
The only way I could have held from .003 to .400 would be if I forgot that I bought it

.

[fiamme red]

Tesla’s Bitcoin speculation helped boost profits by more than $100 million in Q1: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/tesl...s-quarter.html.

Tesla reported first-quarter results on Monday, including a record quarterly net profit of $438 million on a GAAP basis.

As usual, those profits were buoyed by sales of environmental regulatory credits. But in a new wrinkle this quarter, the company’s sales of bitcoin during the quarter also contributed $101 million toward the bottom line...

[retropean]

Originally Posted by verticaldoug

(The only two business cases I see now are for speculation and money laundering.)

Maybe as of 2016. What about all the applications being built on top of ETH, Cardano, Algorand and others?

[fiamme red]

I've heard Dogecoin called a "joke currency," but I guess it's not a joke any more.

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

I've heard Dogecoin called a "joke currency," but I guess it's not a joke any more.

I told a coworker (young, has extra money, seems pretty responsible overall) to just buy it. He was hemming and hawing over the "purchase button" with $1000 as the amount. I told him, look, you're young, if you put $1000 in, what can go wrong? If you lose all of it, it's gone, and in 10 years you won't miss it. But if doge goes up, then, well, it goes up.

He's up 300% right now (it sank immediately after he bought it, much to his chagrin), and this conversation happened two weeks ago.

[mistermo]

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

I told a coworker (young, has extra money, seems pretty responsible overall) to just buy it. He was hemming and hawing over the "purchase button" with $1000 as the amount. I told him, look, you're young, if you put $1000 in, what can go wrong? If you lose all of it, it's gone, and in 10 years you won't miss it. But if doge goes up, then, well, it goes up.

He's up 300% right now (it sank immediately after he bought it, much to his chagrin), and this conversation happened two weeks ago.

My advice to my 19yr old nephew was the same, and he and I bought at .05. He thinks he's investing. I keep telling him this is Vegas, not investing.

Recently had dinner with a realtor for very expensive (by Indianapolis standards) homes. He said young people are the primary buyers and they're putting minimal down, leaving the rest in the market. He said they've never seen a bad market and are unable to fathom what us geezers would call "normal" returns. They'll eventually get bit. 300% in a week, let alone 1000% in two months, will never be seen again yet my nephew believes he's invested skillfully.

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by mistermo

My advice to my 19yr old nephew was the same, and he and I bought at .05. He thinks he's investing. I keep telling him this is Vegas, not investing.

Recently had dinner with a realtor for very expensive (by Indianapolis standards) homes. He said young people are the primary buyers and they're putting minimal down, leaving the rest in the market. He said they've never seen a bad market and are unable to fathom what us geezers would call "normal" returns. They'll eventually get bit. 300% in a week, let alone 1000% in two months, will never be seen again yet my nephew believes he's invested skillfully.

Yes, this is one of my concerns. I don't have enough in retirement for my age but I made more in (unrealized) gains there in 2020 than I did through salary. I know this isn't reality but the prospect of gaining again is very appealing. I saw a 1/6 (of my salary) rise in one month alone this year. It's a bit crazy.

My coworker has been doing the math on his doge. "If it goes to $18 then I'll be free of any debt except my mortgage." Dude, you can't think like that, at least not right now. But at the same time, he can leave it there and it'll still be incredible if it just goes to $1.

At the same time my whole work place has been talking about investing money (loose terms) rather than, say, buying a Switch or PS4-5-6-whatever or buying rims/tires for their car, etc etc etc. They're now thinking twice before buying lunch - a lot of the guys are bringing lunches now, which is a HUGE change from a year ago. So it's a huge change in the way they're thinking, and I think that's awesome. It's mainly 20-30 year olds, and one of my goals has been to make them think just a bit more about saving money instead of maxing out their credit cards to get a set of rims for their car. Some of the things these guys have done is absolutely ridiculous in terms of being fiscally irresponsible. To get them to think in the opposite direction is encouraging.

Personally I tried to get into doge but my bank keeps denying any larger purchases. So I'm in doge on a very limited position, but it's still a position. I'm going to spend some of today figuring out what I can do to change my situation. Probably have to fund the exchange first, then buy it from money "already there". Sort of like funding a PayPal account then paying out of that PayPal account.