Threatening situation developing in cryptocurrency
- Thread starter Suhrreal
- Start date
My kid convinced me to get ripple several years ago.
I bought 500 dollars worth.
its now worth 41 dollars.
To be honest I dont do much better in stocks
I bought 500 dollars worth.
its now worth 41 dollars.
To be honest I dont do much better in stocks
Kids are dumb like that! Hopefully a relatively inexpensive lesson for him in the long run.
I used to follow it pretty closely a few years ago.
Bitcoin now is a scam as far as I can tell.
I might put some money in Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV, but curious what all is brewing in crypto land.
Most of that stuff is probably worthless.
Scam is a bit harsh. It was never more than or ever going to be a novel investment, but that can be said for hundreds of things over the course of history. From tulip bulbs to baseball cards to internet startups, people are drawn to get-rich-quick investments like this.
In order of severity:
1. Hash rate has dropped nearly 30% since the "halvening" a few weeks ago. This means a lot of Bitcoin miners have stopped mining. Bitcoin mining is necessary for the health of the Bitcoin ecosystem. It is responsible for producing new Bitcoins and more importantly, verifying transactions on the blockchain (the database storing all Bitcoin accounts and movements). To give an extreme example, if the number of Bitcoin miners goes to zero, nobody can transact on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin essentially becomes worthless. Another nasty side effect of fewer miners is that transaction bandwidth is reduced. This means if a lot of people are doing transactions, some people may have to wait hours or even days to make a simple transaction. More suspicious, there is a transaction fee system that allows those willing to pay more money in transaction fees to move to the front of the line and have their transactions processed first. So the richest can exit at the top first. Hmm...
2. More printing of Tether. This one is a bit complicated to get into, but the price of Bitcoin has been artificially inflated thanks to Tether. The people behind Tether claim to have a 1:1 backing of Tethers to USD but refuse to allow their banks to be audited. That is scary. Research has been done to show that Tether inflated the price of Bitcoin a few years back when it reached its all-time high of ~$20k USD. Once it hit that mark, it was relentlessly sold off. Bitcoin has never come close to reaching that all-time high again. Tether is also based out of HONG KONG. A very stable place in the current geopolitical climate right now... Oh, did I mention China does a majority of the Bitcoin mining in the world?
3. Bitcoins were moved from a 10+ year old wallet in the past two weeks. There are very few people with Bitcoin this old and it was understood that these Bitcoins were most likely lost forever or at the very minimum, were only going to be sold when Bitcoin had reached a much more stable and "lucrative" point than the current time.
4. Public sentiment. Starting to reach here, but those involved with the market know when big name investors start spouting off about a particular investment to the public, they are usually looking for an exit after a pump. The sheer amount of mindless shilling and advertising happening on social media and forums is also something I have noticed.
Keep in mind I have used Bitcoin here as most cryptocurrency follows its action closely.
well it certainly became one when they introduced segregated witness and then even more so with the lightning network.. it didn't start off quite that sleazy in the beginning.
The cryptocurrency scene has a very large number of scammers and fraudsters attached to it. When you dig deeper, there are many red flags that pop up, even for Bitcoin at its most fundamental level.
If you think that's funny, you should see it measured in USDT. The Tether creators decided to denote their magical Tether coin by USDT. Not trying to fool anyone here...
Good to know China does most the mining, I will put my 15k back in the bank.
Thanks
Not a lot of people buying it to use as currency. Perhaps when it is more mature it will present that opportunity. If it gets that far.
I know less about bitcoin than women...and I know nothing about women...but I remember reading an article a few years ago how terrorists favored bitcoin for their currency...I don't remember why exactly but found it fascinating. I assume it's because it's hard to trace??? I'd love an explanation if somebody has one...Suhrreal that was a great post explaining a little more about it.
Bitcoin is not hard to trace. It is in fact, the exact opposite. Every single Bitcoin transaction ever made will forever be embedded into the blockchain. Every transaction ever made is easily traced. The hard part is knowing who is behind the transaction. This is why banks are required to use know your customer (KYC) regulations. If you can acquire some Bitcoin without having to prove who you are, then you may remain anonymous. The hard part then becomes how to cash out while remaining anonymous. It could prove very difficult if you are handling large sums.
As for terrorists using it, I would have no idea. I do know people use it to buy drugs online. The drug sellers do not prefer to use Bitcoin as there are other cryptos with stronger privacy properties.