Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)

[bernorange 8362]

Quote

...
But by Q4, Goldman Sachs observed that “a consistent increase in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures and options trading, and in Q4 has become the top BTC futures exchange by open interest.”

The result of this was that the open interest for Bitcoin alone topped $4 billion in Q4. This sudden spike in institutional interest in future and options trading has to do with the potential Bitcoin spot ETF approval. ...

https://www.coinspeaker.com/crypto-2023-goldman-sachs/

$4B open interest... just a few stupid, misguided nerds

[bernorange 8362]

On the issue of validators and centralization/decentralization of Ethereum:

Quote

...
Lido, the collective that is the biggest validator on Ethereum, controls 32% of all staked ETH. If this share grows by just a couple of percentage points – creeping past the 33% threshold required to block a 67% supermajority of validators – network outages or deliberate malfeasance at Lido could have massive ramifications for Ethereum as a whole.

This vulnerability stems from the "centralized" nature of most validators; virtually all validators are just individual computers (or servers) loaded with one of a few popular node-running softwares. If there are bugs in the software – or if a computer falls offline – or if the person operating a big validator decides to act dishonestly – then the entire network might suffer.

Distributed validator technology, or DVT, aims to put these risks into the past. Projects that use the tech like Obol, SSV and Diva help validators spread their operations between several parties, ostensibly as a way to make validators more resilient and less subject to single points of failure.

DVT solutions have been talked about for a while, but even as some long-awaited DVT platforms are finally going live, their overall adoption remains low. By Obol's estimate, less than a single percentage point's worth of staked ETH is controlled by DVT-based validators.

In 2024, that could all change. Leaders in the DVT space are finally putting the finishing touches on their platforms, and Lido could soon transition some of its operations into the hands of distributed infrastructure.
...

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/12/20/lido-tests-of-distributed-validator-technology-portend-2024-decentralization-push/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines

[Blotto 23559]

On 12/19/2023 at 12:27 PM, bernorange said:

https://www.coinspeaker.com/crypto-2023-goldman-sachs/

$4B open interest... just a few stupid, misguided nerds

Companies like Goldman Sachs and BlackRock are experts in extracting money from other peoples pockets and placing it in their own. Its their entire raison d'etre. And they had to stand by and watch as billions were fleeced from crypto rubes over the last decade. It killed them that they couldnt really get in on that  easy fucking money. They are hyper aware that the crypto market is rife with inefficiencies and blind spots, and they know that exploiting those would pour billions into their own pockets. So yeah, I'm not exactly shocked they want in on that goldmine. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Blotto

[Thetexashammer 1062]

15 hours ago, Blotto said:

Companies like Goldman Sachs and BlackRock are experts in extracting money from other peoples pockets and placing it in their own. Its their entire raison d'etre. And they had to stand by and watch as billions were fleeced from crypto rubes over the last decade. It killed them that they couldnt really get in on that  easy fucking money. They are hyper aware that the crypto market is rife with inefficiencies and blind spots, and they know that exploiting those would pour billions into their own pockets. So yeah, I'm not exactly shocked they want in on that goldmine. 

So how much do you own?

[Fudge Nuggets 19206]

On 12/20/2023 at 12:27 AM, bernorange said:

$4B open interest... just a few stupid, misguided nerds

Pretty much 

[Hal Finney 174]

Looks like Fudgy came through to defend the honor of one of the most disingenuous politicians we have. Lolllll

2 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Pretty much 

Gonna be a long bull market for you. The significant number of market participants is going to increase dramatically. 
 

 

And while the etf is not the ideal way to hold BTC, I think this will hold true. 
 

 

 

[Hal Finney 174]

Another sign bears are in for a rough couple of years. 
 

 

 

[gyroprotagonist 2594]

Fresh $1B tether minted Xmas morning.  Hope your bags are packed.

[Parliament 14260]

Too the moon!

[Hornbeliever 712]

1 hour ago, gyroprotagonist said:

Fresh $1B tether minted Xmas morning.  Hope your bags are packed.

I own bitcoin and ethereum yet I don't know what the above means...I'll just take it that I'm about to retire a bit earlier.

[Chips O'Toole 1325]

Yeah, I feel like whenever gyro drops a nugget like this, I might be able to use the info to acquire fuck you currency if only I could figure out wtf he is saying. 

[bernorange 8362]

I would assume it's actually a bearish signal.  Tether is a stablecoin that tries to maintain a peg to the dollar.  If they minted $1b in tokens, I'm guessing it's a sign that they expect a lot of people to sell bitcoin (and buy Tether).

[gyroprotagonist 2594]

in general, tether mint = whales are taking out loans to buy (BTC, alts) to push the market up.  when BTC moves into cexs it's bearish as whales look to take profits and sell BTC.  when it's market moving type money, they have to be somewhat delicate in timing and will use 'good' or 'bad' news (ETF happening; not happening; China banning etc...) to mask things and get more public money flowing.  it's never that simple though.  there are twitter accounts that track whale moves and try to map out what they and the big cexs are doing, but it's never 1+1=2.  if all that money is there waiting to buy, they are not going to buy at the local top, right?  There will be a move down so they can pack their bags more cheaply.

again, nfa and all that.  as i have repeatedly said on this thread i get all my info from an anon discord channel lol.  i am about as qualified to talk crypto as some of you are at breaking down PK's zone defense on the football board (sushihorn notwithstanding).  i've got roughly half my crypto kitty in the market right now.  some long-ish term and some with stop losses set.  

[bernorange 8362]

Quote

...
According to data from the Tether Transparency page, $925 million in USDT is “authorized but not issued” on Ethereum as of Dec. 26, 2023.

Ardoino’s latest PSA echoes the language of a previous 1 billion USDT mint in September 2023, when Whale Alert flagged a similar transaction. On that occasion, Ardoino also said that the USDT transaction was an authorization and not an actual issuance, with the allocated amount set to serve as inventory for upcoming issuance requests and chain swaps on the Tron network.

Some online industry watchers have expressed skepticism about Ardoino’s latest PSA and the lack of transparency associated with Tether’s authorized but not issued transactions.

“It would be interesting to examine the document or agreement and learn more about the individuals responsible for this Christmas miracle of creating 1 billion USDTs of thin air,” one commenter wrote, asking whether Ardoino is one of the individuals responsible for such decisions.

Some skeptics also argued that the latest USDT mint will likely be used to increase the price of Bitcoin (BTC), as some industry observers have linked Tether’s USDT minting to BTC price pumping.

“Say it directly you minted it to pump BTC,” one commenter responded in the thread.
...

https://cointelegraph.com/news/tether-1-billion-usdt-inventory-replenish

[Hal Finney 174]

 

As one of the comments notes, there will be “hatebuyers”. People that can’t deny/resist the performance and buy because of the ease of access. 

[gyroprotagonist 2594]

^^

Exactly.   Total pump signal, except when it's not. Everyone better load up in case I need some exit liquidity. 

[Hal Finney 174]

 

156% for the year. Not bad.

If you look at the last cycle in 2020 it then went up 301%. I'd take that in 2024. It would put us up around $170k.

[Parliament 14260]

Looks like a stable viable currency with a solid business case.

[Guest]

I go back and forth on BTC, but I'm fascinated by it. I could see it being worth $0. I could see it being worth $1 million. I still think it's horribly complicated to buy and own outside of an exchange. ETFs will help there.

It also seems clear that its use case is not as a currency but as a store of value. So is the best case scenario that it gets close to the market cap of gold? In that case, it's about 14x today's prices (assuming gold demand wasn't cannibalized by BTC). But would it ever get near gold? After all, you lose your key and the BTC is gone forever. With gold, at least it's still somewhere even if you don't actually hold it. 

What happens if Saudi Arabia or some other entity decides to buy and hold as part of its national wealth fund? That seems plausible to me. 



 

[Hal Finney 174]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

 

What happens if Saudi Arabia or some other entity decides to buy and hold as part of its national wealth fund? That seems plausible to me. 



 

There’s a good chance that a country like Saudi Arabia does come out as BTC holder during this bull run. They could be buying on the open market. Or they could be dipping their toes into mining. The oil and gas industry as a whole is becoming more involved in bitcoin mining, why wouldn’t the larger producing countries do the same?

 

The other real wildcard is I’d be shocked if Russia is not mining or purchasing bitcoin already. 
 

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

It also seems clear that its use case is not as a currency but as a store of value. So is the best case scenario that it gets close to the market cap of gold? In that case, it's about 14x today's prices (assuming gold demand wasn't cannibalized by BTC). But would it ever get near gold? After all, you lose your key and the BTC is gone forever. With gold, at least it's still somewhere even if you don't actually hold it. 

 

I think gold market cap is a good medium term target. Eventually I could see it taking some flows away from assets previously deemed to be risk free.

 

[nolongerU2horn 767]

19 hours ago, BeardIP said:

BTC above $45k

 

whoopsie

[Hal Finney 174]

25 minutes ago, nolongerU2horn said:

whoopsie

meh. It happens. Can't go up in a straight line for the next two years. 

[bernorange 8362]

Double whammy hit BTC today - (all) markets pricing in rate cut skepticism (folks finally realizing earlier euphoria over Fed pivot might have been overstated) and tweets casting doubt on SEC spot BTC ETF approval. 

[Hal Finney 174]

3 hours ago, bernorange said:

Double whammy hit BTC today - (all) markets pricing in rate cut skepticism (folks finally realizing earlier euphoria over Fed pivot might have been overstated) and tweets casting doubt on SEC spot BTC ETF approval. 

You had to figure degens levering up before approval of ETF would get washed out somehow.

 

[Hal Finney 174]

 

What a missed opportunity, nocoiners

 

Edited January 3 by Hal Finney

[StassneyHorn 6613]

I liked these two

 

[Hal Finney 174]

17 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

I liked these two

 

Hey I think you can bag groceries at HEB at 15, or work at Schlitterbahn or whatever.

The other is a bad joke (CR MAN?!)

Doesn't change the fact that an opportunity has been missed by many.

[Captainant 27680]

14 minutes ago, Hal Finney said:

Hey I think you can bag groceries at HEB at 15, or work at Schlitterbahn or whatever.

The other is a bad joke (CR MAN?!)

Doesn't change the fact that an opportunity has been missed by many.

Or that you're sourcing your pumpndump hype from some weird Twitter troll

[Hal Finney 174]

14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Or that you're sourcing your pumpndump hype from some weird Twitter troll

He's the CEO of a well known BTC company. And i guess he likes to troll the most disingenuous, anti-bitcoin politician around.

 

[Captainant 27680]

4 minutes ago, Hal Finney said:

He's the CEO of a well known BTC company. And i guess he likes to troll the most disingenuous, anti-bitcoin politician around.

 

Ah gotcha so you're sourcing your sunshine pumping from the CEO of a bitcoin speculation platform - that makes more sense now.

Hey I heard Tillman fertitta talk about the new great odds and room rates at the nugget in Lake Charles! We should all check it out!!!

[Guest]

I don't quite understand the hatred against bitcoin. Don't like it as an investment, sure. But going out of one's way to bash it doesn't make sense to me. 

[Captainant 27680]

21 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I don't quite understand the hatred against bitcoin. Don't like it as an investment, sure. But going out of one's way to bash it doesn't make sense to me. 

It's not hatred - I've posted at length in this thread on the practicality, energy efficiency, scalability, and usability issues with bitcoin that materially limit its efficacy towards its stated goal of being a decentralized currency. And we've gotten the "it's coming in the next two weeks!" for a number of different solutions and band-aid fixes (inb4 LiGhTnInG) that never ever seem to actually materialize and move the protocol past where it's been for more than a decade.

[Hal Finney 174]

37 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I don't quite understand the hatred against bitcoin. Don't like it as an investment, sure. But going out of one's way to bash it doesn't make sense to me. 

The vast majority of the hatred comes from people that are mad that they "missed" it. (We're still pretty early) These people especially come from finance and tech backgrounds. They're involved in sectors that should've helped them see the opportunity in front of them and they feel they've blown it. 

It takes a lot to admit you were wrong, take the L, and change course. Especially amongst people in fields that generally feel more intelligent than those in other fields.

 

[Guest]

Edit: This is in response to CaptainAnt

But that seems to sell it short. I posted above that I don't really see its use case as a currency like was originally predicted, but it's gone from literally nothing to $44,000 a coin. Maybe the protocol doesn't move past where it is today and those that say it will revolutionize finance are completely and utterly wrong.

But the fact remains that it's knocking on the door of $50K a pop. I think that's interesting itself, and don't get all the jabs at it. I guess in my mind I'm separating bitcoin from the bitcoin maxis. 

Edited January 4 by FirstTimeCaller

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Hal Finney said:

The vast majority of the hatred comes from people that are mad that they "missed" it. (We're still pretty early) These people especially come from finance and tech backgrounds. They're involved in sectors that should've helped them see the opportunity in front of them and they feel they've blown it. 

It takes a lot to admit you were wrong, take the L, and change course. Especially amongst people in fields that generally feel more intelligent than those in other fields.

 

I don't know which side is right or wrong. It certainly seems that there is something there. But is that something worth $44K or $2K? I don't know.

[bernorange 8362]

2 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

... But is that something worth $44K or $2K? ...

tree fiddy

[StassneyHorn 6613]

I think people with Finance and Tech backgrounds were the ones most open to throw money at it in the beginning, and currently.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, StassneyHorn said:

I think people with Finance and Tech backgrounds were the ones most open to throw money at it in the beginning, and currently.

Yeah, definitely.

[Hal Finney 174]

10 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

I think people with Finance and Tech backgrounds were the ones most open to throw money at it in the beginning, and currently.

True, but the ones with those backgrounds that didn't (or still haven't) are the saltiest.

[Tailgate 3022]

2 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

I think people with Finance and Tech backgrounds were the ones most open to throw money at it in the beginning, and currently.

Agree. Should have listened to my web developer when he told me to buy at $800.

I am in at a bit more (cough).

Looks like the run up to ETF approval is happening. I’m guessing a 20% bump that day/48 hours.

Higher wouldn’t surprise me. Can’t imagine a decrease in value.

[Hal Finney 174]

15 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Agree. Should have listened to my web developer when he told me to buy at $800.

I am in at a bit more (cough).

Looks like the run up to ETF approval is happening. I’m guessing a 20% bump that day/48 hours.

Higher wouldn’t surprise me. Can’t imagine a decrease in value.

I would be surprised by a big pop in price. Hope I'm wrong. I think it will be slow burn upward as money rotates in. May not be as immediate as the coiners think. My friend that owns a decent sized financial services firm doesn't believe there will be much demand for the ETF. I think he underestimates NGU and FOMO. Wall St is competing for that demand though.

 

 

 

[Captainant 27680]

11 hours ago, Hal Finney said:

I think he underestimates NGU and FOMO

If your main arguments for why it's a good investment is "number go up" and fomo, then I'm not sure why this thread isn't in the gambling board lol

[bernorange 8362]

Wednesday is the 10th. It's the deadline day for the SEC decision on ARK's application.  Blackrock et al have deadlines in June, but could be included when SEC decides on ARK's application.

[Hal Finney 174]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:04 AM, nolongerU2horn said:

whoopsie

we're back at 45k.

On 1/5/2024 at 7:43 PM, Captainant said:

If your main arguments for why it's a good investment is "number go up" and fomo, then I'm not sure why this thread isn't in the gambling board lol

That's not why I think it's a good investment. Those are the tailwinds I expect to come from the ETF rollout.

But why do people invest in the stock market or anything else? Do they expect NGU? Of course.

On 1/6/2024 at 7:09 PM, bernorange said:

Wednesday is the 10th. It's the deadline day for the SEC decision on ARK's application.  Blackrock et al have deadlines in June, but could be included when SEC decides on ARK's application.

A lot of final forms being submitted today outlining fees.

 

It's a done deal, barring some exceptional move by Yellen/Treasury to declare some kind of security threat from BTC.

I'm still kind of surprised this is all being allowed to go through. A real watershed moment. Things will be different when there's many more Hodlers (even if ETF).

I expect a massive push for outlawing self custody from Sen. Karen and her ilk. They will try to keep it siloed in Wall St institutions.

[Guest]

Damn it. I signed into Coinbase for the first time in over a year last night to buy some BTC. I didn't like the fees (1% + the spread), so after about 10 minutes of thinking about it, I didn't buy.

Up 7% today.

[Hal Finney 174]

28 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Damn it. I signed into Coinbase for the first time in over a year last night to buy some BTC. I didn't like the fees (1% + the spread), so after about 10 minutes of thinking about it, I didn't buy.

Up 7% today.

If you don't like the fees on Coinbase you can just wait until the ETFs are trading. Some have fees as low as 0.25%, or free the first 6 months of trading. 

But I would recommend owning the Bitcoin yourself if you've taken the time to log on to Coinbase.

Edited January 8 by Hal Finney

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Hal Finney said:

If you don't like the fees on Coinbase you can just wait until the ETFs are trading. Some have fees as low as 0.25%, or free the first 6 months of trading. 

But I would recommend owning the Bitcoin yourself if you've taken the time to log on to Coinbase.

No, I want custody.

[Hal Finney 174]

8 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

No, I want custody.

smart man

[Tailgate 3022]

[gyroprotagonist 2594]

anyone going to sell on the news?

whales have not used all the billion from xmas and there was another billion started last week.  there is money there to move the market up.  question is whether whales dump after ETF announcement to load their bags again at lower level.