Wow. Bitcoin is almost $1,500

[momeNt]

yup. It's fun to watch. You could take half the people in this thread and plop them down in September-October 1929, and they'd still be just as confident about the way things are.

Since everybody here is unable to invest in zinfamous salt, we go to the next best thing. Vechain!

 

[IronWing]

yup. It's fun to watch. You could take half the people in this thread and plop them down in September-October 1929, and they'd still be just as confident about the way things are.

I just searched ebay for completed auctions of Confederate bonds. Maybe someday folks will pay for pieces of the block chain as collector items.

 

[Yakk]

That makes me think of another reason why the wild-west altcoins will not be used by megacorps and nations. Consensus-based anonymous distributed schemes are open to the 51% attack. I realize Bitmain itself won't do this, but Wells Fargo and the US Treasury aren't going to leave their ledgers or coins open to hacking by Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian or World Crime League ASIC farms.

Practically all altcoins have a controlling group which dictates what happens to the coin, much like a corporate CEO. So I don't see large-scale organisations just basing their entire existence and placing themselves in the hands of another CEO either. So far only Bitcoin has successfully endured repeated financial attacks, which are IMO continuously needed tests to actually see a decentralized model working.

Nations could certainly have their own coins, and many are in various states of R&D. Should these projects become reality like possibly Venezuela, it'll be interesting to see the market reactions and how these coins are evaluated from outside the country and their price relation to BTC outside of FOREX.

 

[destrekor]

Amber Baldet gave a good talk on blockchain technology, explaining how it can (and equally or more importantly can't or shouldn't) be used in enterprise; and simplified, high-level descriptions of how some underlying privacy features like zkSNARKs (not to be confused with zkSTARKS, which I don't think have been implemented in any cryptocurrency yet) work.

https://livestream.com/internetsociety/bsidesnyc/videos/168972446

Not sure if you saw this:
https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/046

While zk-STARK hasn't been implemented in a cryptocurrency yet, it is fascinating to see that the transparent and trustless version of zero-knowledge proofs may just be around the corner in general. A demonstrated working proof would be huge not only for any cryptocurrency that fully adopts it, but also for the general cryptography world in general.

The lead team for Monero has stated that if any when zk-STARK can be provably demonstrated, they'll likely adopt it. What I love about Monero is that, unlike Bitcoin, it's not purposefully trying to remain static. And maybe that's fine because it could transform into a gold equivalent, not something you barter with everyday but certainly not a bad asset to invest and/or hedge. Which is funny because while I like that idea, the original vision was as a currency/payment network. It's demonstrated that can't be achieved while remaining static due to the network's inability to scale.

Monero is ready and willing to fork away if it means creating a superior version of itself, becoming the ultimate privacy coin. Right now it's all about obfuscation for Monero, by way of RingCT, but it'd be superior to have a working zk-STARK implementation and they know that. I've been wary of ZCash because the issue with zk-SNARK is that you can't ultimately prove the trust remains intact, meaning the master key was properly destroyed and no witness can recreate it.

Damn, now I'm excited! I hadn't looked into zero-knowledge in a long time.

 

[destrekor]

Practically all altcoins have a controlling group which dictates what happens to the coin, much like a corporate CEO. So I don't see large-scale organisations just basing their entire existence and placing themselves in the hands of another CEO either. So far only Bitcoin has successfully endured repeated financial attacks, which are IMO continuously needed tests to actually see a decentralized model working.

It's not entirely like that - it's more like Linux and Linus Torvalds. It's open source (usually) but still shepherded by a driven and dedicated core team. Bitcoin is still very much that way - there are core devs, who refer to themselves as Bitcoin Core. Any successful opensource software is going to have a core dev team, because when they cease driving the product, the original product usually dies. There may be a fork (in the software classical sense) that gets developed as a replacement, but it's fundamentally a different product, one with a new direction, new core devs, etc. For any opensource code, the only time there are not core developers is when the product is dying, dead, or in limbo.

Now there are certainly cryptos that are more akin to a company, and some are 100% under the guidance of an actual CEO and board.

The corporate community has also demonstrated that they are willing to subscribe to the opensource model when those projects are guided by a highly competent team. They'll support that specific variant of the code, they won't support forks. That's if they offer support at all but for such software, paid licenses of opensource products tend to provide just that - but in the land of cryptos, we could consider the "support" to be the project being actively developed (and receiving the most network activity).

 

[Ns1]

holy shit if true. Greed f'd this guy.

So, long story short, I started trading a year ago, been margin longing the whole run from 1k to 19k ( sometimes closing the top, sometimes closing too early or too late, but always making profit)

I turned 3 lowly btc which I had from playing poker (at the time 3k) into nearly 200 BTC which was almost 4 million at the top and would be 2 million at current prices.

I thought I was a trading genius, a god, whatever. Anyway, this is where the sadness starts.

After the dump from 19k to 11k I went long at the bottom, and kept adding to my position on the bounce to 12k 13k, 14k. Then, at the 16k dead cat, my position was a further 100 BTC in profit. Instead of closing then and having a total 300 BTC, I increased leverage and increased my position size. This entire position was liquadated on the drop back to 12k, because my entry had moved up so much. I lost 100 btc paper profit and nearly 50 BTC margin. I was devasted, and down to 150 BTC total.

After evaluating the situation, I came to the conclusion that the pump to 16k was a dead cat and that we are going lower. Therefore I shorted. At 12k. Added at 13k. Added at 14 and 15k. Got liquidated at the top at 17k. Another 50 BTC loss. Down to 100.

Think, ok we made a higher high at 17k, uptrend back on. Went long. Got liquidated at 13k.

50 BTC left. Devastated, unsure, no clue whats going on. Sat through the drop to 9k, when we bounced I thought it could be the bottom. Longed at 11500, panic closed 10500. When we went to 13k I was kicking myself for panic closing, went long at 12800.

Liquidated this morning for my last bitcoin.

3 BTC to 200, to 0

At this time I am still in shock, the last few months Ive neglected relationships and school, and Ive been daydreaming about living the high life rich as fuck with my millions.

Now, I am nowhere.

Posting this so others dont gamble away life changing money. Dont want donations or tips not posting an address dont PM me. I never want to hear the word btc again because I want to forget

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMar..._lost_nearly_200_btc_trading_this_past_month/

 

[Ns1]

I was wondering where these guys all were. They're in the reddit comments.

I don't seem to be coming back. I basically have the same story as OP except that I went from investing everything I had (as a college student) to buy 60 BTC in 2013 and holding strong for a solid 4 years. Then having a mental health crisis during 2016 and giving 20 BTC away to strangers online who took advantage of me, never to be seen again. Then in December, days before the top, I learned what margin trading actually was. Mad a tiny bit. Lost a good amount while falling asleep during a drop and then chasing the whole thing (40 BTC) down to 0.02 BTC.

I'm beyond devastated. I'm confident that I'm going to end my life over this and I've already begun separating myself from the world and getting my affairs in order. I feel weird revealing and admitting this on reddit, but this post hits home, as does the one of the main sub about the guy's brother who killed himself over the same situation.

I admire those who can weather setbacks of this kind but I'm not one of them. I knew from the minute I read the white paper that Bitcoin was a game changing idea. I poured my savings into it, confident that my stack would be worth a million (20K) within 5 years (I called this almost perfectly). It's not even like I want to live an extravagant lifestyle, I just wanted to feel financially safe for once in my life and wanted to share the wealth with those close to me and help build positive businesses and a better world. The pump and dumpers and Lamborghini memes are so obnoxious, as if the world needs any more mindless hedonistic consumerism. I grew up pretty poor and bounced from foster home to foster home and from school to school. I barely made it through college and have no marketable skills. I lost my dead end sales job a few months back and can't bring myself to go back to barely getting buy. I held strong throughout the years, even though I could've certainly used the money at times. I always brought my own lunch to work and always took the subway when I could instead of paying for Uber. I invested a few thousand dollars back in 2013 and never saw a penny of it. OP is much more honorable than me because I certainly don't have the self respect to turn down donations but I'm also pretty certain that people aren't donating to the small army of people who are in the same situation and I obviously don't deserve it anyway. When I run into friends, they always ask about how well I must be doing because they know I've been a Bitcoin proponent for a long time. Smiling and looking at them in the eye while talking positively about Bitcoin is incredibly taxing and I immediately want to throw up in the nearest trash can afterwards.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Heh, sorry to hear about those examples. I just mine, well, hash, earn BTC for my compute time, and then turn around and cash out to USD. I don't feel so bad now about not HODL'ing. Although, I feel BTC will go back up.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I was wondering where these guys all were. They're in the reddit comments.

Yep, I have never day-traded and I have no intention of ever starting.

I invest in the most boring way possible: buy index funds, hold for decades, re-balance (stocks vs. bonds, US vs. foreign) by adjusting what I buy more of not by selling.

It's worked well for me, though it's a get rich slowly scheme without the wild excitement of all or nothing coin frenzy.

 

[Train]

I was wondering where these guys all were. They're in the reddit comments.

lol jeeze, dude could have went to Vegas and at least had pretty girls bring him cocktails while he gambled.

 

[ultimatebob]

I just searched ebay for completed auctions of Confederate bonds. Maybe someday folks will pay for pieces of the blockchain as collector items.

Why would someone pay good money for an old USB thumb drive with a private key on it if the network it authenticates against is gone? Without a blockchain to authenticate against, it's just a worthless string of characters.

 

[destrekor]

holy shit if true. Greed f'd this guy.



https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMar..._lost_nearly_200_btc_trading_this_past_month/

Those kinds of stories are lucky accidents + novice trading, and those stories are repeated throughout any kind of asset trading circle. I've made the same mistakes, and have lost both paper and real money, and I'm trying to play conservatively with crypto. I've "missed out" on numerous rises, just because I couldn't bring myself to trust my own read.

Unless you really are a trading god, margin trading is not for you. I've been tempted to dip my toes into margin trading, but I fear the moment I do I start going backwards. Some of my recent trades have not went very well - not badly at all, but not good either. Small losses. Impatience... even if it seems like years have went by while just watching your net worth grow and/or bounce around, if you start getting impatient with your growth goals when trading near all time highs and the corrections that are inevitable, you're going to get your ass handed to you. That cryptos often trade like penny stocks is what makes this all for the worse: because penny stocks are the only major asset category that sees these kinds of gains and immediate losses, thanks to choreographed pump and dumps. Thankfully I learned my lesson at relatively small valuations in the grand scheme of things.

That one story of the guy who had millions from a few thousand dollars and now wanting to end it all: jesus, wake up on the other side of the bed. A few thousand isn't life-ending, unless he went nuts with lending based on net worth or was slowly cashing out little bits to live a life above his real means. It's not real until it's in your bank account and if you are living beyond that, you play with fire.

 

[Red Storm]

Yeah those people have a gambling problem. I guess I'm doing it the boring way as my strategy is to buy low and never sell (until I'm ready to cash out).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Investing is gambling, you need to know your limits, and know when enough is enough. The trick is to cash some, but never all. Like with my ethereum mining, I will probably keep half in crypto and then cash the other half. At least I feel that's a sensible strategy. I have a chance of going big if the coins skyrocket, but I also don't risk losing everything if they crash.

I own a lot of penny stocks, some that I feel will possibly do very well in the future like gold mines (literal gold mines) but also if they crash, it's not like I put all my life savings into it either.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's not real until it's in your bank account and if you are living beyond that, you play with fire.

Amen! Preach it, brotha.

I am thankful for the $20-30 USD every two days or so in my bank acct due to mining.

 

[Zeze]

I'm still waking up.

How the hell do you go to 200 btc to 0? Literally how?

You park it in a sh*tcoin and keep losing value when it's bearish?

 

[Crono]

I'm still waking up.

How the hell do you go to 200 btc to 0? Literally how?

You park it in a sh*tcoin and keep losing value when it's bearish?

Margin trading is the debil

 

[fleshconsumed]

So random question. I just realized that since I still hold BTC, I have some Bitcoin Gold. I think it's "worthless" but in its worthless state it is still worth about $2K. I'd like to trade that for VEN or something else. However, reading online there are lots of scams going around BitcoinGold. In order to access it I'd have to get BitcoinGold wallet and give it private key, same private key that is used to access my BTC account, so potential for hijacking is high. I could just create a new BTC wallet and transfer my current BTC balance there, but that would incur roughly $500 in transaction fees therefore negating $2K I'd gain by selling BitcoinGold.

What do you guys say. Should I just leave this alone, or should I transfer my BTC/BCH into new wallets despite $500 transaction fee to access $2K in BitGold? Or are there "safe" Bitcoin Gold wallets that won't steal your private keys?

 

[momeNt]

holy shit if true. Greed f'd this guy.



https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMar..._lost_nearly_200_btc_trading_this_past_month/

These are gambling stories basically.

There really are no true fundamentals where you can trade on like a typical stock market. All you are trading on is investor sentiment and the idea that eventually it will be useful. Technical analysis is more or less the fallacy of past performance indicating future performance, so it's all really just a gamble, which is why you should only invest what you can afford to lose. That guy there thought he knew something, when he really knew nothing. =\

 

[momeNt]

So random question. I just realized that since I still hold BTC, I have some Bitcoin Gold. I think it's "worthless" but in its worthless state it is still worth about $2K. I'd like to trade that for VEN or something else. However, reading online there are lots of scams going around BitcoinGold. In order to access it I'd have to get BitcoinGold wallet and give it private key, same private key that is used to access my BTC account, so potential for hijacking is high. I could just create a new BTC wallet and transfer my current BTC balance there, but that would incur roughly $500 in transaction fees therefore negating $2K I'd gain by selling BitcoinGold.

What do you guys say. Should I just leave this alone, or should I transfer my BTC/BCH into new wallets despite $500 transaction fee to access $2K in BitGold? Or are there "safe" Bitcoin Gold wallets that won't steal your private keys?

How do you figure it is $500 transaction fees? Transferring between wallets shouldn't be more than $10? Am I misunderstanding something?

 

[Red Storm]

This made me LOL:

 

[Yakk]

So random question. I just realized that since I still hold BTC, I have some Bitcoin Gold. I think it's "worthless" but in its worthless state it is still worth about $2K. I'd like to trade that for VEN or something else. However, reading online there are lots of scams going around BitcoinGold. In order to access it I'd have to get BitcoinGold wallet and give it private key, same private key that is used to access my BTC account, so potential for hijacking is high. I could just create a new BTC wallet and transfer my current BTC balance there, but that would incur roughly $500 in transaction fees therefore negating $2K I'd gain by selling BitcoinGold.

What do you guys say. Should I just leave this alone, or should I transfer my BTC/BCH into new wallets despite $500 transaction fee to access $2K in BitGold? Or are there "safe" Bitcoin Gold wallets that won't steal your private keys?

How do you figure it is $500 transaction fees? Transferring between wallets shouldn't be more than $10? Am I misunderstanding something?

How did you get to $500? Is there dust in your old account or a massive amount of old transactions which would need cleaning with a miner?

What does your coin control dashboard show?

 

[Zeze]

Margin trading is the debil

I don't even know what that is.

You try to hop between different coins for gains, but end up keep losing. That is easy to understand. Is that margin trading though? If not, how do you lose 200 to 0 with just Bitcoin only?

Also that guy looks to be royally screwed due to taxes.

 

[Red Storm]

So DNV GL - a global quality assurance and risk management company, and the world's largest classification society - today announced that not only will they be implementing blockchain tech from VeChain (which we already knew), but that they will also be recommending it to all of their clients, of which there are more than 70,000. This is huge news IMHO, I initially thought it would be just DNV GL themselves who would be working with VeChain, but potentially all or a lot of their clients too? Awesome stuff! I don't know of a single other crypto coin/company that has such partnerships announced?

https://www.dnvgl.com/news/dnv-gl-p...rency-from-the-factory-to-the-consumer-110284

 

[DaveSimmons]

So DNV GL - a global quality assurance and risk management company, and the world's largest classification society - today announced that not only will they be implementing blockchain tech from VeChain (which we already knew), but that they will also be recommending it to all of their clients, of which there are more than 70,000. This is huge news IMHO, I initially thought it would be just DNV GL themselves who would be working with VeChain, but potentially all or a lot of their clients too? Awesome stuff! I don't know of a single other crypto coin/company that has such partnerships announced?

https://www.dnvgl.com/news/dnv-gl-p...rency-from-the-factory-to-the-consumer-110284

Interesting, but this might mean just making payment(s) to use their source code and development services to save on in-house development costs. That has no direct effect on the value of their coins, though it would boost the value of their stock shares.