Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

Govt bans will always be the biggest threat. This is why it’s critical for wall st and the big banks need to be involved. But until then, we should expect more and more authoritarian govts to push back. 

[MirrOlure 14757]

Quick question about Coinbase and Coinbase Pro:

Are they intended to both be used, Pro as the wallet and Coinbase as the “research” tool?

Pro (at least for me) doesn’t have any charts beyond 1 day, and no information about the coin.

Just curious. Because, you know, I really dig deep into the data and especially the technical explanations of what these alt coins are and what the actually do. I mean, otherwise I’d just be putting money into something I know next to nothing about just hoping for some reason it goes up!

[bernorange 8359]

 

32 minutes ago, MirrOlure said:

otherwise I’d just be putting money into something I know next to nothing about just hoping for some reason it goes up!

Welcometothepartypal.gif

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

Buy the dip*

 

* not financial advice

[bernorange 8359]

haha.. yeah, I just finished buying a bit of the dip this morning.  Shit might fall a bit further throughout the day, but I'm sure everything will be up at least 10% by next week.  Guess I'll spend the rest of the day scouting for a nice beach to sit on.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

I’m curious to see some of the fallout of this drop on defi. A decent # of crypto holders get over collateralized crypto loans in order to buy more crypto. Big drop off creates a margin call type of scenario. Which could create automatic sells, or they are selling on their own to cover the calls.

as things were headed up, these loans were easy moneymakers. Until they’re not.

and others were making easy money providing liquidity. While they haven’t lose any coins, they’re planned returns could get lower.

[GRHorn 105]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Buy the dip*

 

* not financial advice

You always have to buy these dips in a bull market.

[GRHorn 105]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Govt bans will always be the biggest threat. This is why it’s critical for wall st and the big banks need to be involved. But until then, we should expect more and more authoritarian govts to push back. 

Yep. Autocrat that had fired a central banker because he tightened monetary policy is strongly against Bitcoin. Shocker. 
 

And note the language. It’s always about “protecting investors” (or consumers). When in actuality they don’t want their people to have an escape valve from a dumping currency.
 

Politicians claiming to do the exact opposite of what they’re actually doing. Happens all the time in every country. Patriot Act. Affordable Care Act. Scum. 

[GRHorn 105]

this is an angle I hadn’t thought of but is kind of interesting. People talk about Central Bank Digital Currencies like only Bitcoin is the target, but in cbdc world where they’re airdropping currency you’re actually going around commercial banks. 
 

 

[ajax 2603]

I think the most likely explanation of the crash is that it was a long squeeze and nothing to do with Turkey or the reduced hash rate.

[washparkhorn 9939]

1 hour ago, GRHorn said:

this is an angle I hadn’t thought of but is kind of interesting. People talk about Central Bank Digital Currencies like only Bitcoin is the target, but in cbdc world where they’re airdropping currency you’re actually going around commercial banks. 
 

 

China already rolling it out domestically. They want the dollar to collapse as well. Welcome to their party. 

kidding/not kidding

[Sgt Hulk 13712]

Me waking up to see Doge at .42 lol. Yes I’m the dipshit that bought about 5k shares at a penny lol 

[closetohumping 17433]

Missed buying the dip for doge and btc

[bernorange 8359]

I keep waiting for doge to pull back/dip.  Damn.

[GRHorn 105]

13 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

China already rolling it out domestically. They want the dollar to collapse as well. Welcome to their party. 

kidding/not kidding

As well?
 

Anyway, I had you down as a pretty left wing, progressive type based off posting history. But implying that supporting Bitcoin is aligning with China is the current statist line of attack. Interesting. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

The DOGE diamond hands held fairly strong over the weekend. It sounds like a fair amount of the buys are coming from RobinHood. And if relatively few people are selling DOGE on RobinHood, I assume RobinHood is buying heavily on other exchanges to cover their customers' market buys. Or RobinHood is contracting directly with large mining ops that have been sitting on DOGE.

Are groups like Wall St Bets talking about using DOGE as their store of value while waiting on future stock market moves? 

I dont' know what to think when I have friends, who know I'm into crypto, are calling me about wanting to get into DOGE. Doesn't the joke go something about when your taxi driver talks hot stocks with you, it's time to get out of the bubble? Anyway I've advised my friends to proceed cautiously and that I'm even tempted to find a place to get into DOGE but not until it sees a large pull back. I also explained to them that FOMO can easily wreck you.

[washparkhorn 9939]

5 hours ago, GRHorn said:

As well?

Bitcoin/crypto is a bet/stake against the USD; China, inter alia, wants to end the USD's dominance.

This isn't a surprise or a secret. At a minimum, crypto has a strong anti-American element with state actors working against the USD.

Hence - there is a risk with crypto, as you already know, if it reaches the prominence many of you want. The USD pays a lot of bills for this nation and her people. It will not go down without a fight (and the dollar has the military to back it).

TLDR: Be careful out there while you pick up nickels before the steamroller comes through. 

 

[DonkeyCigars 144]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The DOGE diamond hands held fairly strong over the weekend. It sounds like a fair amount of the buys are coming from RobinHood. And if relatively few people are selling DOGE on RobinHood, I assume RobinHood is buying heavily on other exchanges to cover their customers' market buys. Or RobinHood is contracting directly with large mining ops that have been sitting on DOGE.

Are groups like Wall St Bets talking about using DOGE as their store of value while waiting on future stock market moves? 

I dont' know what to think when I have friends, who know I'm into crypto, are calling me about wanting to get into DOGE. Doesn't the joke go something about when your taxi driver talks hot stocks with you, it's time to get out of the bubble? Anyway I've advised my friends to proceed cautiously and that I'm even tempted to find a place to get into DOGE but not until it sees a large pull back. I also explained to them that FOMO can easily wreck you.

My rule of thumb is if @hayden_horn is getting in on an investment, sell, the party is over (bad taste in mouth from GME).

Edited April 19, 2021 by DonkeyCigars

[hayden_horn 11362]

4 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

My rule of thumb is if @hayden_horn is getting in on an investment, sell, the party is over (bad taste in mouth from GME).

lulz, this is apretty good rule of thumb. except i did buy twitter at $16. blind nut/squirrel

[Bone3421 716]

Me waking up to see Doge at .42 lol. Yes I’m the dipshit that bought about 5k shares at a penny lol 

I wish I was that dumb lol.... The doge I have is just from left over funds from buying shares

Cost basis is under 1¢ but it's not much...up 14k% but torn on selling as I'll probably never buy into it again

Even when I bought long ago plan was just to never sell and hope one day they cap supply and I get bitcoin rich

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

1 hour ago, washparkhorn said:

Bitcoin/crypto is a bet/stake against the USD; China, inter alia, wants to end the USD's dominance.

This isn't a surprise or a secret. At a minimum, crypto has a strong anti-American element with state actors working against the USD.

Hence - there is a risk with crypto, as you already know, if it reaches the prominence many of you want. The USD pays a lot of bills for this nation and her people. It will not go down without a fight (and the dollar has the military to back it).

TLDR: Be careful out there while you pick up nickels before the steamroller comes through. 

 

Agree but disagree. There is definitely an element to crypto folks that feel that fiat currency, and it's control on the world's population, needs to go. However there some that want crypto to be the catalyst while others think crypto dominance will be the result BECAUSE of govt policies.

[Sgt Hulk 13712]

44 minutes ago, Bone3421 said:

I wish I was that dumb lol.... The doge I have is just from left over funds from buying shares

Cost basis is under 1¢ but it's not much...up 14k% but torn on selling as I'll probably never buy into it again

Even when I bought long ago plan was just to never sell and hope one day they cap supply and I get bitcoin rich

Idiots will buy tomorrow on 4/20 it’ll pump and I’ll sell lol

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

I might drop $500 into DOGE just to kill its rally. Of course I have to figure out how/where to buy it.

[GRHorn 105]

2 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Bitcoin/crypto is a bet/stake against the USD; China, inter alia, wants to end the USD's dominance.

This isn't a surprise or a secret. At a minimum, crypto has a strong anti-American element with state actors working against the USD.

Hence - there is a risk with crypto, as you already know, if it reaches the prominence many of you want. The USD pays a lot of bills for this nation and her people. It will not go down without a fight (and the dollar has the military to back it).

TLDR: Be careful out there while you pick up nickels before the steamroller comes through. 

 

Bitcoin is a more of a bet against central banking/planning. Just take a look at two of its more distinguishing features. It's a decentralized network, with no single points of failure or influence, and its supply is limited to 21 million, a response to central bank printing. These are global phenomena and that's why it's popular globally.

2 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

 

This isn't a surprise or a secret. At a minimum, crypto has a strong anti-American element with state actors working against the USD.

 

 

Could you expand on this? 

Crypto, and Bitcoin in particular, supports a lot of American values. This is not my quote but I like it.

Bitcoin bolsters liberty, free speech, property rights; checks tyrannical power; works equally no matter your race, religion, or politics.

In fact you could argue the current USD system with its embedded censorship and corruption, being used globally as a weapon at times even against our allies, is anti American. At least what it used to mean to be "American".

 

 

[GRHorn 105]

This post covers stablecoins, but has some good points on btc and usd. It's also from September and the numbers are much larger now.

https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-dollar-surge-opportunity

Spoiler

Stablecoins are a hot commodity. Over $16 billion of them circulate in the wild today, up from $4.8 billion to start the year. Mostly these are issued outside of the U.S., and so are largely unaccountable to financial regulators. If they keep growing, U.S. policymakers, in particular those in the state of New York, will have to stomach the loss of their dominance over dollar clearing. But because stablecoins represent a powerful neutral financial infrastructure, the U.S. should welcome their ascendance regardless.

It’s no secret that banking is highly politicized, often in informal or hard to apprehend ways. The overt politicization of the N.Y.-based correspondent banking system represents a tax on all users. Embedded in each transaction is a slight risk of censorship. Dependence on the system means submitting oneself to an American aegis. The harder it is to extricate yourself, the more you are subject to the demands of the administrator.

Banks and payment processors have also become more politicized, as they have begun to “de-risk” (read: de-platform) individuals and industry sectors with whom they disagree politically, or where they consider implied compliance costs too significant to be worth the hassle.

In February, I wrote that U.S. regulators should embrace the potential of stablecoins as continued instruments of dollar dominance. I stressed the potential welfare benefits of allowing savers in countries with inflationary regimes to engage with currency substitution without relying on the bank sector. Since February, the outstanding supply of stablecoins has grown from around $5.5 billion to $16 billion and their daily settled value has grown from about $1 billion daily to $4 billion daily. This phenomenon is no longer localized to the crypto industry. It has begun to cause geopolitical reverberations.

 

First, stablecoins make for an excellent tool to avoid capital controls in oppressive monetary regimes. Chainalysis has reported that tether (USDT) is extremely popular in China, even recently exceeding bitcoin’s (BTC) usage in the region. It’s important to understand that the popularity of stablecoins or “crypto-dollars” is not solely due to their digital nature but because of the transactional freedom that they offer to users.

 

China’s financial system is highly digitized already. Crypto-dollars like tether offer a fundamentally different value proposition from AliPay or the state digital currency, DCEP, because they are bearer assets not subject to the same level of surveillance or transactional restrictions. Their digital nature isn’t what sets them apart; it’s the fact that you can permissionlessly accept or send any quantity of crypto-dollars with nothing more than a smartphone and trade it on a vast network of exchanges and brokers worldwide.

 

 

Today, crypto-dollarization is in full swing in places like Venezuela. Recently, Venezuelan President-in-exile Juan Guaido has begun promoting the usage of AirTM, a crypto-focused remittance company, to send U.S. dollars (USD) seized from the Maduro regime by the U.S. Treasury to health-care workers in Venezuela. Startups like Valiu are offering users digital access to the USD thanks to established crypto-financial infrastructure like LocalBitcoins. Crypto-dollars make sense because U.S. banks do not service Venezuelan users, even if regular Venezuelans are not formally sanctioned.

 

Crypto-dollarization works because stablecoins are, for the most part, unencumbered by the shackles of the U.S. banking system. The largest issuer, Tether, relies on a network of offshore banks, and remains frustratingly outside the purview of the New York regulator, the Department of Financial Services (despite a long campaign to bring Tether to heel). Stablecoin issuers treat the IOUs as bearer instruments, and generally do not seek to police user behavior when a transaction does not involve the issuer. Users only need a relationship with the issuer if they are redeeming or creating stablecoins with bank dollars. By granting a measure of transactional privacy and not embedding political conditions into transactions, stablecoins are the closest thing to digital cash we have today. Notably, it is the private sector, not the state, that has delivered on this promise of digitally native cash.

Now, U.S. policymakers reading this might feel a profound sense of unease. New York is the center of the dollar universe. SWIFT, which the U.S. effectively controls, is unambiguously an instrument of power projection abroad. And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Department of Justice have a habit of expressing political prescriptions through informal bank guidance and veiled threats. Touch a dollar anywhere – even in a transaction in which neither counterparty is American – and you’re obliged to Uncle Sam.

But these tools are wearing blunt with overuse. The more the U.S. threatens sanctions, the greater the incentive for its peers – allies included – to seek out alternatives. The more risk-averse and puritanical banks become, the stronger the tailwinds for non-bank alternatives. The more dissidents are de-platformed from U.S. payment processors, the better neutral alternatives start to look.

 

Perhaps catalyzed by the growth of stablecoins, or more likely by the announcement of Facebook’s libra or China’s DCEP, various branches of the Federal Reserve are now industriously pursuing a “digital dollar.” But would such a project, regardless of its final form, grant transactors the autonomy that they deserve? Would a digital cash system produced by the Fed consist of an instant-settling, private bearer asset, as is the case with physical cash? Would an American central bank digital currency be able to credibly guarantee that its rich database wouldn’t be plundered in real time by Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as Larry White has wondered?

 

Today, the U.S. is still the center of gravity as far as bitcoin and the crypto-dollar ecosystem are concerned. This is a significant advantage that should not be squandered. Policymakers should be thanking their lucky stars that a putative successor to the U.S’ financial infrastructure is a largely American phenomenon. The U.S. can continue to muddle down an increasingly exclusionary path and punish subscribers to its financial infrastructure by burdening them with political dictates, or it can embrace a neutral alternative. Self-disruption would be a significant bullet to bite, but it suits the U.S. Values like liberty, privacy, free enterprise and personal autonomy are embedded into our Constitution and social fabric. One can hardly think of a better nation to underwrite a shift to a truly neutral payments and settlement infrastructure.

 

While dollar infrastructure is likely to remain dominant far longer than some critics allege, it’s undeniable that banking and messaging have been deputized into carrying out the political objectives of their administrators. As relations with U.S. allies sour and China grows its sphere of influence in Asia, viable alternatives will be created. And if the DCEP is any guide, these alternatives will not encode strong privacy protections for end users. The U.S. is clearly suited to be the steward of a politically neutral payments technology, if our leaders can rise to the challenge.

If the U.S. chooses to marginalize crypto-dollars and punish their issuers, not only will they suppress a burgeoning American industry, they will also push users into even less accountable alternatives. While most stablecoins are backed by dollars in bank accounts – and are hence somewhat subject to governance – a subset are issued natively against crypto collateral like ether (ETH). These projects are more automated and lack the vectors of control and the linkages to the banking system that characterize convertible stablecoins. While still small, crypto-backed stablecoins like dai (current supply $455 million) take a more crypto-anarchist approach, and are harder to surveil or influence. More draconian regulation of crypto-dollars would not eliminate the category. Instead, it would push users into these slipperier alternatives.

The architects of these public digital dollar solutions should take a leaf from the private sector’s book. Users simply crave the qualities of cash, this time in a digital context. Far from being a dangerous techno-utopian fantasy, a genuine cash standard on the internet is simply a restoration of what was once ubiquitous and normal: transactional privacy and autonomy. These qualities are not for criminals but for everyone. And if policymakers dig in their heels, the private sector will only push back harder by providing the service that users demand – but this time outside policymakers’ sphere of influence.

 

"Today, the U.S. is still the center of gravity as far as bitcoin and the crypto-dollar ecosystem are concerned. This is a significant advantage that should not be squandered. Policymakers should be thanking their lucky stars that a putative successor to the U.S’ financial infrastructure is a largely American phenomenon. The U.S. can continue to muddle down an increasingly exclusionary path and punish subscribers to its financial infrastructure by burdening them with political dictates, or it can embrace a neutral alternative. Self-disruption would be a significant bullet to bite, but it suits the U.S. Values like liberty, privacy, free enterprise and personal autonomy are embedded into our Constitution and social fabric. One can hardly think of a better nation to underwrite a shift to a truly neutral payments and settlement infrastructure."

[closetohumping 17433]

5 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I might drop $500 into DOGE just to kill its rally. Of course I have to figure out how/where to buy it.

Robinhood.  Wait till I cash out though 

[Doc Holliday 199]

Up 7500 on doge.  It's ridiculous. I'm still kicking for selling when it hit 7 cents when I had 200k coins worth. 

Am I wrong in thinking retail energy will push this to 2 or 3 bucks? 

[Bone3421 716]

Up 7500 on doge.  It's ridiculous. I'm still kicking for selling when it hit 7 cents when I had 200k coins worth. 
Am I wrong in thinking retail energy will push this to 2 or 3 bucks? 

The Reddit crowd is pushing for a 1$...not sure how much higher it will go past that

[Doc Holliday 199]

8 minutes ago, Bone3421 said:

1 hour ago, Doc Holliday said:

Up 7500 on doge.  It's ridiculous. I'm still kicking for selling when it hit 7 cents when I had 200k coins worth. 
Am I wrong in thinking retail energy will push this to 2 or 3 bucks? 

The Reddit crowd is pushing for a 1$...not sure how much higher it will go past that

That will keep fueling their fire, imo.   

My bigger concern or risk are the billion dollar purchases outside of Musk or Cuban.  Will they push or keep the price low through a series of sell offs?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

41 minutes ago, Doc Holliday said:

That will keep fueling their fire, imo.   

My bigger concern or risk are the billion dollar purchases outside of Musk or Cuban.  Will they push or keep the price low through a series of sell offs?

There have been billion dollar purchases of DOGE? Can you expand on that? I also don't believe Musk or Cuban have bought anywhere near that amount.

[GRHorn 105]

2 hours ago, Doc Holliday said:

Up 7500 on doge.  It's ridiculous. I'm still kicking for selling when it hit 7 cents when I had 200k coins worth. 

Am I wrong in thinking retail energy will push this to 2 or 3 bucks? 

I think you’re wrong. Getting to $2 would push it near ethereum’s current cap. Extremely unlikely, but I guess anything is possible in crypto. 

[Hank_Hill 18789]

The people got too high and forgot to buy DOGE today

[GRHorn 105]

Sold another 1/3 of my Riot calls today, rotated the proceeds to gbtc. Looks like I might’ve puked them at the bottom, still a huge win. A lot of these proxies like riot, Si, Mstr arent behaving as reliably since Coin went public. I think people are going to focus more on that stock, especially bigger fish. 

[GRHorn 105]

39 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Sold another 1/3 of my Riot calls today, rotated the proceeds to gbtc. Looks like I might’ve puked them at the bottom, still a huge win. A lot of these proxies like riot, Si, Mstr arent behaving as reliably since Coin went public. I think people are going to focus more on that stock, especially bigger fish. 

Actually if you break down MSTR it looks like it’s at a pretty good spot. They own 91,576 BTC. At 56,500 per that 5.17B in BTC. Their legacy business before diving into BTC was valued at about 1.2B. So 6.37B. 

Current market cap 6.3B. So trading at about par. 

[GRHorn 105]

Ok last post. Some Interesting metric data from the blockchain 

 In summary-LFG

[Doc Holliday 199]

4 hours ago, GRHorn said:

I think you’re wrong. Getting to $2 would push it near ethereum’s current cap. Extremely unlikely, but I guess anything is possible in crypto. 

Valid point and the likelihood it happens is slim to none.  My floor for tripling my investment isn't 30 cents so I'm watching it all.  A lovely slow decline today and retail investors on reddit et al are itching for another big play.  It's foolishish for strategy in the market and if retail pools their money, they make strange things happen.  Like doge at 30 cents. 

[GRHorn 105]

 

[ajax 2603]

Thanks @GRHorn

Pretty much what I suspected. I wish the whales would give me a heads up when they long squeeze the leveraged weak hands, so I could time my purchases better.

[GRHorn 105]

So where do they go next? 

[bernorange 8359]

I saw this news this morning:

Quote

Three ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday. ...

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/102379/ether-etf-purpose-ci-evolve-begin-trading-canada

I checked just now and see trading volume for Etherium is topping the list (above bitcoin and everything else).  First time I've ever seen it top bitcoin.  I can only assume that the Canadian ETFs are contributing.

[Neonmoon 38129]

What will central bank digital currencies do to crypto?

[Blotto 23487]

His comment about the rate of new users may very well be true. I bet it was also true in early 2018. I'm not predicting a crash because I have no clue what will happen ST or LT. But the tops of most bubbles will all share that characteristic. Its human psychology. 

[bernorange 8359]

2 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

What will central bank digital currencies do to crypto?

I would suppose the answer will depend upon the public's faith/adoption of the CBDC.  Cryptos are assets just like many other things.  There is currently a lot of hopium that some cryptos might become something more than just a digital asset, but I suspect a successful CBDC roll out will quash most of those dreams.

[GRHorn 105]

2 hours ago, Blotto said:

His comment about the rate of new users may very well be true. I bet it was also true in early 2018. I'm not predicting a crash because I have no clue what will happen ST or LT. But the tops of most bubbles will all share that characteristic. Its human psychology. 

That’s a good point. A counter point I’ve seen that makes sense is all of the prior BTC tops have occurred with high volatility at the end. This has been a low vol (for BTC) market, especially the last few weeks. 
 

3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

What will central bank digital currencies do to crypto?

I don’t think they have a big effect, at least on BTC. In a lot of ways they’re exact opposites. CBDCs will be centralized, censorable, offering limited if any privacy protections, and with a theoretically unlimited supply. 

[Neonmoon 38129]

13 hours ago, bernorange said:

I would suppose the answer will depend upon the public's faith/adoption of the CBDC.  Cryptos are assets just like many other things.  There is currently a lot of hopium that some cryptos might become something more than just a digital asset, but I suspect a successful CBDC roll out will quash most of those dreams.

That is a concern. If CBDC basically wipes our crypto other than black market transactions and off grid transactions, seems like a pump and dump scheme if CBDC is on the train tracks. Don’t get me wrong, by all means, get it while it’s good. 

[GRHorn 105]

10 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

That is a concern. If CBDC basically wipes our crypto other than black market transactions and off grid transactions, seems like a pump and dump scheme if CBDC is on the train tracks. Don’t get me wrong, by all means, get it while it’s good. 

A US cbdc if created will be meant to compete with the Chinese Cbdc. And also stablecoins like USDC or Tether. Bitcoin is something different right now. 

Other cryptocurrencies like ETH will be unaffected by Cbdcs. They have different use cases than simple monetary transactions 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

27 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

A US cbdc if created will be meant to compete with the Chinese Cbdc. And also stablecoins like USDC or Tether. Bitcoin is something different right now. 

Other cryptocurrencies like ETH will be unaffected by Cbdcs. They have different use cases than simple monetary transactions 

I don't fully see how a govt "stablecoin" will compete with the traditional stablecoins. In theory, stablecoins need an asset (e.g. dollar or crypto) behind it to keep it pegged to an amount like $1. 

A US-govt (or Chinese) stablecoin will just be digital fiat aka it's worth what the govt says it is. And if they want to mint $1b of them on demand, I imagine they will.

 

 

[Southland 35]

What are the thoughts on GBTC. I just rolled my 401k over into an IRA and am looking at this to get 1-2% exposure to bitcoin here.

I see it is currently trading around -14% to NAV and looking at history it appears to trade at a premium during run ups and a discount during downturns.

Other than the risks with BTC itself are there any unique concerns with GBTC that I should be aware of?

I've just started doing research on this.

[bernorange 8359]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

... If CBDC basically wipes our crypto other than black market transactions and off grid transactions, ...

For the record, I don't think govco needs to ban cryptos to establish a CBDC.  If the Fed announces they are replacing dollars with Fedcoins, financial business is going to develop around Fedcoins.  Existing cryptos trying to gain footholds as financial products/currencies will have trouble competing for a critical mass of the public's attention. 

The only real benefit to a decentralized crypto is the potential for international commerce.  Whereas CBDCs will be national by design, cryptos can be global, so there will be some opportunity for competition there.

[GRHorn 105]

22 minutes ago, bernorange said:

For the record, I don't think govco needs to ban cryptos to establish a CBDC.  If the Fed announces they are replacing dollars with Fedcoins, financial business is going to develop around Fedcoins.  Existing cryptos trying to gain footholds as financial products/currencies will have trouble competing for a critical mass of the public's attention. 

The only real benefit to a decentralized crypto is the potential for international commerce.  Whereas CBDCs will be national by design, cryptos can be global, so there will be some opportunity for competition there.

You’re still discounting the permissionless, censorship resistant nature of something like Bitcoin. Also, essentially unconfiscatable.