Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)

[nolongerU2horn 767]

Think advertising doesn't work?

 

JUST DID!

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

The Celsius bankruptcy resolution is about to pay out at least $1b in crypto to creditors and account holders. I’m curious to see if there will be selling pressure as some of these people might want a quick flip into fiat.

[Tailgate 3,022]

Could the push before BTC halving be happening? 

[bernorange 8,362]

Ethereum has a network upgrade ("Dencun") rolling out on March 13 with "proto-darksharding" that is supposed to lower gas fees.  SEC deadline for decision on spot ETH ETFs is May 23.  Assuming they get approved, Ethereum is likely going to trade higher this year especially with a rising BTC environment.

[gyroprotagonist 2,594]

4 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Could the push before BTC halving be happening? 

i see this as whale profit taking before pull back.  thnk it will go ~35K ish before we would get a true bull run that sustains for a while.  give the whales time to load up at a much lower level.

[david chaum 39]

22 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Could the push before BTC halving be happening? 

Yes. No more GBTC coins shuffling around. 
 

Only 1k below ETF opening high. Buckle up boys. 
 

 

[david chaum 39]

 

[david chaum 39]

Final stats for first month 

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

17 minutes ago, david chaum said:

Final stats for first month 

 

many of the largest brokers don’t allow transactions with the new btc etfs. Imagine the inflow if they did. I imagine charts like this are being passed around in these brokerages discussing the demand.

[david chaum 39]

3 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

many of the largest brokers don’t allow transactions with the new btc etfs. Imagine the inflow if they did. I imagine charts like this are being passed around in these brokerages discussing the demand.

Economic incentives will continue to drive bitcoin adoption. (Even though I wouldn’t consider etf buying true adoption, it’s a proxy and will lead to many more purchasing, holding and using BTC directly.)

 

How long do entities like Vanguard continue to deprive their clients of opportunities that are available elsewhere? Eventually they will cave as well. 
 

I think this is why MSTR and miners outperformed the price of BTC this week. A lot of money still locked out of the etfs. 

[bernorange 8,362]

This could be huge if it works at scale:

Quote

Citrea, a project incubated by Chainway Labs, came out of stealth to propose the first Bitcoin native scaling solution involving ZK rollups. The innovation, which takes advantage of the possibilities introduced by BitVM to natively verify zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs without making any changes to the protocol, takes a different approach to blockchain scaling.

For Citrea, any project that seeks to scale Bitcoin without using its blockspace is not helping it scale and will eventually become a competition for Bitcoin itself. Also, these solutions fail to address the functionalities needed to make Bitcoin the foundation for world finance: the Lightning Network fails to add programmability to Bitcoin. Similarly, sidechains fail to use Bitcoin blockspace, diverting their action to other chains.

Citrea proposes a solution that addresses these two aspects, leveraging ZK proofs that use the Bitcoin blockspace to settle its transactions while sharding the execution task to its virtual machine. Citrea claims it is the “only execution layer on Bitcoin that settles on Bitcoin, the first ZK proof verification, and the first universal L2 verification inside Bitcoin.”

Citrea also allows the implementation of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) apps on top of Bitcoin, allowing it to become the bedrock for different apps that have been pushed to other chains that lack the trust and security that Bitcoin offers. Nonetheless, it is not limited to EVM apps and can adopt new virtual machines due to its modular architecture.

The project is already being tested in a private testnet. Citrea reported that it is working hard to launch a public testnet for its product, with more information available in the coming months.

https://news.bitcoin.com/citrea-proposes-first-zk-rollup-to-make-bitcoin-the-all-chain/

 

[Guest]

[Captainant 27,680]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:19 PM, bernorange said:

could be huge if it works

crypto_irl

[bernorange 8,362]

@FirstTimeCaller- Nerds figured out how to enable zk rollup scaling on the Bitcoin blockchain:

Quote

Blockchains, like Ethereum, can be slow and expensive. Having to spend $25 or more in gas fees for a single transaction is not ideal if you want to complete a decentralized finance (DeFi) trade.

That’s why layer 2 systems such as rollups have emerged. Rollups process transactions on another, faster blockchain (known as a layer 2), then port the transaction data back to the parent blockchain (the layer 1 or mainnet) at a fraction of the price. This means that users can benefit from the speed and cheapness of the rollup while also benefiting from the security of the bigger blockchain.

Rollups are one of several scaling systems, which are simply methods to make a slow blockchain faster and cheaper. ...

https://www.coindesk.com/learn/what-are-rollups-zk-rollups-and-optimistic-rollups-explained/

If it works as advertised, it should eventually allow for faster and less expensive BTC transactions while maintaining privacy and security.  It also exposes smart contract functionality to BTC (one of the biggest advantages that Ethereum, Solana, et al. currently enjoy over Bitcoin).

[david chaum 39]

Through the post ETF listing high. 49k. Lets go.

1 hour ago, bernorange said:

@FirstTimeCaller- Nerds figured out how to enable zk rollup scaling on the Bitcoin blockchain:

https://www.coindesk.com/learn/what-are-rollups-zk-rollups-and-optimistic-rollups-explained/

If it works as advertised, it should eventually allow for faster and less expensive BTC transactions while maintaining privacy and security.  It also exposes smart contract functionality to BTC (one of the biggest advantages that Ethereum, Solana, et al. currently enjoy over Bitcoin).

Will be years before that could be added. There's a few other proposed upgrades in line before it that have floated around for a while. A lot of bitcoiners are also more cautious now about upgrades after Taproot ended up enabling Ordinals/NFTs on Bitcoin. Unintended consequences and so on.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

BTC basically 50K as I type this. Investors who bought the $IBIT etf a month ago are up 14%.  ETH over $2,500.

[Parliament 14,260]

So which first?  Cocaine?  Hookers?!

[bernorange 8,362]

2 hours ago, david chaum said:

Will be years before that could be added. ...

Pretty sure that they are claiming it's possible with the existing BTC network - no upgrade required.  They are already testing it on private testnets.

~~~

This tweet is not specific to any crypto token/platform, but highlights many use cases for tokenization (click on "show more" to see the full tweet).  There are several crypto platforms that are focusing on developing tools for various applications in the list (rather trying to do everything at once):

 

[david chaum 39]

 

 

[david chaum 39]

one more bull post for the day we hit 50k again.

 

 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, david chaum said:

 

 

I like bitcoin, it seems sad to try to make a bull case because the Google searches for it are still low.

Dat $50K tho... get ready for the laser eyes to make a comeback.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

Please God, give me one more oil crypto boom. This time I promise to sell and not hodl.

[david chaum 39]

17 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I like bitcoin, it seems sad to try to make a bull case because the Google searches for it are still low.

Dat $50K tho... get ready for the laser eyes to make a comeback.

Public interest/attention is still low relative to past cycle tops. Seems relevant.

[Blotto 23,559]

 

[david chaum 39]

 

Great business

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

The iShare bitcoin trust page

• Jan 31st: $2.9B in bitcoin
• Feb 12th: $4.7B in bitcoin

Unless the iShares' (& others) investors get spooked and sell, I don't sell how BTC won't continue to go up in price with this much money flowing in. 

[david chaum 39]

18 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The iShare bitcoin trust page

• Jan 31st: $2.9B in bitcoin
• Feb 12th: $4.7B in bitcoin

Unless the iShares' (& others) investors get spooked and sell, I don't sell how BTC won't continue to go up in price with this much money flowing in. 

 

10,000 BTC a day going into etfs. Only 900 mined a day. That means more and more will have to come from existing supply. Price will have to go much higher to find a ton of sellers over the next year or two.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

8 minutes ago, david chaum said:

 

10,000 BTC a day going into etfs. Only 900 mined a day. That means more and more will have to come from existing supply. Price will have to go much higher to find a ton of sellers over the next year or two.

At these ETF purchase levels I assume that the bitcoin halving even in April will be less of an impact than some think/hope. If ETF buys and mining net out at ~9,100 bitcoins purchased from existing inventories, is that much of a difference from ~9,550 in April? Not a zero impact but I don't see the needle moving much.

But not to be a Debbie Downer, I think we hit $100K this year unless there is an unexpected external factor.

 

Edited February 14 by Nice Guy Eddie

[david chaum 39]

12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

At these ETF purchase levels I assume that the bitcoin halving even in April will be less of an impact than some think/hope. If ETF buys and mining net out at ~9,100 bitcoins purchased from existing inventories, is that much of a difference from ~9,550 in April? Not a zero impact but I don't see the needle moving much.

But not to be a Debbie Downer, I think we hit $100K this year unless there is an unexpected external factor.

 

agreed. More of a psychological thing.

One thing i hadn't considered until now was the effect of the etfs on unit bias.

People balked at buying btc when it's tens of thousands of dollars even though you can buy portions of a bitcoin. But buying shares of IBIT at 29.65 removes that factor.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

2 minutes ago, david chaum said:

agreed. More of a psychological thing.

One thing i hadn't considered until now was the effect of the etfs on unit bias.

People balked at buying btc when it's tens of thousands of dollars even though you can buy portions of a bitcoin. But buying shares of IBIT at 29.65 removes that factor.

Great point. Many people do not understand crypto and could incorrectly believe that they have to buy a full bitcoin. 

I'm sure I or someone has also mentioned it here that the continued success of these ETFs will put pressure on more brokers on allowing IBIT (and other) purchases. Wall St. just wants people's money and their job isn't to protect investors. There must be internal and external pressure to open up the buys.

[david chaum 39]

3 hours ago, BeardIP said:

A lot of folks who were dancing on the grave of BTC and crypto must be wondering what is going on right about

 

[bernorange 8,362]

Quote

...
Citi, one of the largest financial institutions, has completed a tokenization test for a private market equity fund in alliance with Wellington Management, Wisdomtree, and ABN AMRO, who played different roles during the proof of concept event.

The test’s objective was to “better understand key technological, operational, and legal considerations that are required to kickstart the transition from analog to digital” of these private markets. For this goal, Citi selected Spruce, an institutionally oriented Avalanche subnet, as the platform for tokenizing these assets.

During the test, Wellington Management acted as the private equity fund issuer of the underlying asset, ABN AMRO was enlisted as an investor of the fund, and Wisdomtree simulated the role of a wealth provider, who also managed the onboarding of potential test investors.

The use cases tested included the tokenization of the hypothetical private fund with rules encoded in the smart contract of the token issued, testing transactions relying on externally issued IDs, and using this token as collateral in a parallel lending contract in alliance with DTCC Digital Assets.

Citi concluded that there were some benefits in using tokenization technologies for putting assets into the hands of investors in newer forms with upgraded capabilities outside of what can be achieved with traditional tech.
...

https://news.bitcoin.com/citi-completes-private-market-tokenization-test-using-avalanche/

Citi report (8 page .PDF):

https://www.citigroup.com/rcs/citigpa/storage/public/Fund-Tokenization-Summary-Report.pdf

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2,732]

Damn.  ETH creeping on $2900.  

I bought some long ago just for fun, along with Cardano and Polygon.  Think it might be to cash out the others and just HODL ETH.  

I know nothing of this stuff BTW.  

[bernorange 8,362]

28 minutes ago, T’Boo Ted Marshall said:

Damn.  ETH creeping on $2900.  

I bought some long ago just for fun, along with Cardano and Polygon.  Think it might be to cash out the others and just HODL ETH.  

I know nothing of this stuff BTW.  

 

On 2/8/2024 at 11:35 AM, bernorange said:

Ethereum has a network upgrade ("Dencun") rolling out on March 13 with "proto-darksharding" that is supposed to lower gas fees.  SEC deadline for decision on spot ETH ETFs is May 23.  Assuming they get approved, Ethereum is likely going to trade higher this year especially with a rising BTC environment.

Barring an economic disaster (hard/crash landing), Ethereum should do very well this year.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

3 hours ago, bernorange said:

 

Barring an economic disaster (hard/crash landing), Ethereum should do very well this year.

This is where I am. Admittedly I want to see btc and eth skyrocket but I don't see money flowing out of the coins this year unless there is a major external factor. It also feels like we're running out of major exchanges that can have a new scandal.

[nycHorn 3,036]

ETH finally breaks thru $3k

[Cum Rocket 136]

 

[B00M 6,418]

Cum rocket … you get crowd sourced so often this is the trash you’re resorting to?

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, B00M said:

Cum rocket … you get crowd sourced so often this is the trash you’re resorting to?

My profile name is a ridiculous cryptocurrency.
 

You’re free to ignore. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, B00M said:

Cum rocket … you get crowd sourced so often this is the trash you’re resorting to?

You’re an interesting case.

Hard money interested/sympathetic yet begging to know why NYT isn’t sufficiently hawkish militarily.
 

Fiat fuels endless wars. 

My gut tells me your instincts are correct, but you’re easily whipped up by propaganda. 
 

We’re here to talk about hard money and speculate on ridiculous cryptos. If you can’t handle it, then you’re welcome to retreat to threads where your basic conversations will take place. 

[bernorange 8,362]

Here's another report about the zk rollup on Bitcoin story (that I mentioned Feb 10) that is a bit easier to digest:

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/21/bitcoin-zero-knowledge-rollup-citrea-raises-27m-in-seed-funding/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=editorial&utm_campaign=coindesk_main&utm_term=organic

[TreatyOak 16,366]

Here is a fun website/newsletter that takes a critical look at Web 3/crypto world. Molly White is a very smart tech worker who shares the stories you might not get in the mainstream market. Her coverage of the Sam Bankman Fried trial on Youtube is fantastic. 

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/ 

Edited February 21 by TreatyOak

[Hornbeliever 712]

28 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Here is a fun website/newsletter that takes a critical look at Web 3/crypto world. Molly White is a very smart tech worker who shares the stories you might not get in the mainstream market. Her coverage of the Sam Bankman Fried trial on Youtube is fantastic. 

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/ 

Can you spoiler if her critique means we are taking BTC to the moon?  If not, all her logical thoughts are dead wrong.

[Cum Rocket 136]

 

[B00M 6,418]

On 2/20/2024 at 9:03 PM, Cum Rocket said:

You’re an interesting case.

Hard money interested/sympathetic yet begging to know why NYT isn’t sufficiently hawkish militarily.
 

Fiat fuels endless wars. 

My gut tells me your instincts are correct, but you’re easily whipped up by propaganda. 

does supporting Ukraine mean I’ve been whipped up by propaganda? 

 

Edited February 26 by B00M
Weird repost

[Tailgate 3,022]

BTC 55k incoming.

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2,732]

Quickly approaching the area I always tell myself to sell but don’t.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

2 hours ago, T’Boo Ted Marshall said:

Quickly approaching the area I always tell myself to sell but don’t.

You can’t sell at 55 when 100 is just around the corner. Ha.

edit. I’ve been following and owning crypto since 2017. One thing that feels different about this recent run up is that the entire market is going up (or down) together. In the past, it seemed that when BTC went up, funds were drained from ETH or alt coins. And vice versa. As if the same money was just being moved around. Now today everything is running up, presumably with buyers pushing up many coins at once. 

perhaps the sellers of one coin are pushing that into other coins.  Another difference with this run is the overall lack of the new hot coin that pumps only to drop down just as fast. I’m sure that exists today but not at the same level.

Edited February 27 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Tailgate 3,022]

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

You can’t sell at 55 when 100 is just around the corner. Ha.

edit. I’ve been following and owning crypto since 2017. One thing that feels different about this recent run up is that the entire market is going up (or down) together. In the past, it seemed that when BTC went up, funds were drained from ETH or alt coins. And vice versa. As if the same money was just being moved around. Now today everything is running up, presumably with buyers pushing up many coins at once. 

perhaps the sellers of one coin are pushing that into other coins.  Another difference with this run is the overall lack of the new hot coin that pumps only to drop down just as fast. I’m sure that exists today but not at the same level.

My read is that big insititutional money is wading into BTC etf. A lot of the community that has been in crypto for years is now looking around trying to front run pumps in other shitcoins. That's why they're pumping at the same time.

What they’re underestimating is the amount of money that will continue to roll into Btc via the etf. The price is going to continue to pump, but that money is not going to be flipped into shitcoins.

There might even be a later stage scenario where btc pumps and others dump majorly because cryptotwitter realizes they're not where the main flow of money is going and they retrace. 

 

Just my .02. 

 

3 hours ago, T’Boo Ted Marshall said:

Quickly approaching the area I always tell myself to sell but don’t.

Selling now would be incredibly foolish. Just tell yourself, no selling until AT LEAST 2025.