Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Norway]

Look at the price!
BCH is taking a serious dive, as BTC is reaching for the sky.

This is a sweetspot for BUIP 073.

BTC has no future. It doesn't work. It's a speculative bubble with no utillity.
BCH has the potential to become the best money the world have ever seen.

How can I be right, and all these investors be so wrong?

I try figure it out, but I just can't see where I'm wrong, and the market is right.

Either the world is crazy, or I am crazy. That's the two options.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@Norway Between the price action and the increasing signs of trouble at Bitfinex this feels like late 2013.

 

[Norway]

At the same time, the tone definitely changed on Theymosian grounds, all have a short peek here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7hzl78/steam_is_no_longer_supporting_bitcoin/

I wonder whether the people complaining there are former(?) Coretards. I see 'when is LN finally ready'-type posts. Great

What would make me bullish would be first signs of real infighting in rBitcoin. That would be a sign that they won't be able to keep a closed front against BCH, especially also when the overlords (Greg, Adam) deem "Bitcoin ready for a blocksize increase".

The infighting hasn't begun yet. But the desperate cries for SegWit implementation in Coinbase etc. to lower the fees are certainly there. The Coretards want low fees. They are not happy with just "a store of value".

How long can they live in the Sci-fi dream of Lightning?
[doublepost=1512603116,1512602361][/doublepost]

"Funny" to see Steam drop Bitcoin support and suddenly all the "Lightning is almost ready" announcements on /r/bitcoin...

Where is Bitpay's BCH integration?

BitPay shouldn't just integrate BCH. They should stop supporting BTC.

BitPay haven't integrated the plethora of cryptocurrencies in their Point Of Sale systems. I think their reasons are that they are bitcoin maximalists and very aware of the user experience. Nobody like to choose between 15 currencies when they check out. Or 2.

Good money drives out bad money. There should be only one.

BitPay should take the bald step of going from BTC to BCH.

The company was bald when they started. They should search deep and find back to their old strength.
[doublepost=1512603871][/doublepost](The reason I invert Gresham's law, is because I think it just describes short term counterfeiting. Long term, good money wins. Long term, most ICO's lose. Long term, the roman empire collapse when they reduced silver in their coins. And I think the time span for "long term" is shrinking with the fast communication we have today.)

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

There is no sense in BitPay processing Bitcoin for payments <$100. It is just a horrible means of payment.

It's really strange. Bitcoin raising to €12k, which is fantastic for me and a big victory of "Store of Gold Bitcoin". There are times in live, where you have to admit that the opponent was not completely wrong. Store of Value seems to work.

On the other side it is depresssing seing Steam kicking Bitcoin. This was one of the opportunities for me to spend Bitcoin, and I loved it every time, thinking, "Fuck You, Paypal and MasterCard, I don't need you." Having to use a middle men again, be it PayPal, be keys4coins, is disautonomization, destruction one of many little steps that have been achieved in last years. I guess it will continue, bye bye Pizza for Bitcoin. bye bye honey vine, bye bye VPN accounts, bye bye anonymous payments for my mailbox ...

On a side note, I gave my girlfriend 0,8 Bitcoin in late 2013. She just stores it on Mycelium since then and regularly pays for her printings on a german online printshop. I guess she uses Bitcoin more often as Adam Back. Having Bitcoin makes her happy, as the value of her wallets grows and grows and grows, despite her spending Bitcoins, like the magic bottle of wine that never empties, and she never had problems with confirmations, even in times of heavy load. Yesterday she told me that she is waiting for some days for a confirmation. I looked at the transaction, she paid 6 satoshi / byte, Mycelium picked this when mempool was down, but due to the sudden rise this week she will not get it confirmed before next week.

Having such events, the regular, but unpredictable outburst of fee events, completely destroys the reliability of a payment system. As we predicted SegWit was no help, and Lightning will be no help, too.

On twitter and on my blog several people wrote to me or publically commented: But but but, Lightning, we finished integration tests. These people just don't understand that you can't enforce such a system, that Lightning means a fundamentally different economic design than Bitcoin, and that there seems to be zero interest by merchants and payment services to go full Lightning. Anybody who thinks that Steam will reaccept Bitcoin because of Lightning is dilussional. Nobody will take such a crazy complicated system where you have to put money in when you want to get paid (or find somebody doing it for you).

 

[torusJKL]

bye bye Pizza for Bitcoin. bye bye honey vine, bye bye VPN accounts, bye bye anonymous payments for my mailbox

And at the same time on the other end of the spectrum we get more adoption:
Buy a private yacht, buy a Lamborghini, fly with a private jet.

Bitcoin SegWit has become the currency for the elite class instead of bringing economic freedom to the world.

Nobody will take such a crazy complicated system where you have to put money in when you want to get paid

I just tough about this the other day.
A big company might be able to put in a big amount of bitcoins but they would also need a counter party.
So we could assume many big companies creating channels with each other.

But how would that work with the average Joe?
McDonald's can't open a channel with every single customer and put in money in advance.
The same goes for a small coffee shop who might not have the funds in the first place.


By the way, who pays the fees if the channel is closed from one side?
Is it both parties or only one of them?

I looked at the transaction, she paid 6 satoshi / byte, Mycelium picked this when mempool was down, but due to the sudden rise this week she will not get it confirmed before next week.

We know what the smallblockers answer to this problem is: RBF.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

It's really strange. Bitcoin raising to €12k, which is fantastic for me and a big victory of "Store of Gold Bitcoin". There are times in live, where you have to admit that the opponent was not completely wrong. Store of Value seems to work.

A ponzi scheme is not a store of value.

This is the mother of all bubbles. Wait for the inevitable, massive crash and the following media campaign. "It's like tulips mania after all".
(Which, in the case of Bitcoin SW, won't even be a lie. The problem will be, that cryptos like Cash will be lumped together with the greatest private ponzi of all time.)

 

[cryptollf]

Inevitable result of the bullish Bitcoin. The new gold. Actually, scrap that, Bitcoin will be better than gold.

 

[awemany]

I have the feeling the flippening won't happen until the mania dies away. If Bitcoin Cash emerges it will be from the ashes of the coming crash. But first, we might visit $100,000 BTC+BCH+other spinoffs.

There should be a bottom of despair in our BCH community regarding the BCH:BTC price ratio. Will that coincide with the top of the Bitcoin bubble? I think that's likely, yes.

And I also don't think we have reached that yet, in terms of mood in /r/btc, for example.

I believe it was @Peter R on slack who observed on slack that he's good at timing the bottom of the market. Maybe he should watch that one

 

[solex]

At long last, gold and silver stackers are throwing in the towel. Another sign of the BTC bull-market top?

At some point we have to admit that we were wrong. The idea was good...maybe even noble. However, the result has been the shits.
Holding this shit is like staying in a bad marriage. The love is gone and I just want to be free of the bitch.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-07/precious-metal-pounding-continues-silver-now-red-2017#comment-10789295

 

[molecular]

BTC has no future. It doesn't work. It's a speculative bubble with no utillity.
BCH has the potential to become the best money the world have ever seen.

How can I be right, and all these investors be so wrong?

I try figure it out, but I just can't see where I'm wrong, and the market is right.

The way to make a fortune is not to be right, but to be right when everybody else is wrong.

The question for me is: how much do I trust my own judgement and how long can I wait for the truth to finally crystallize.

 

[Jonathan Vaage]

The disillusionment is going to hit hard and fast.

 

[molecular]

BitPay shouldn't just integrate BCH. They should stop supporting BTC.

BitPay haven't integrated the plethora of cryptocurrencies in their Point Of Sale systems. I think their reasons are that they are bitcoin maximalists and very aware of the user experience. Nobody like to choose between 15 currencies when they check out. Or 2.

Good money drives out bad money. There should be only one.

BitPay should take the bald step of going from BTC to BCH.

I agree 100%

The problem is probably that the guy taking bold steps back then (Tony Gallipi and maybe someone else, not sure) are probably not in full enough control of bitrpay any more.
[doublepost=1512659264,1512658663][/doublepost]

It's really strange. Bitcoin raising to €12k, which is fantastic for me and a big victory of "Store of Gold Bitcoin". There are times in live, where you have to admit that the opponent was not completely wrong. Store of Value seems to work.

I disagree: "Store of Value" isn't going to work in the long run. The reason for the runup is propaganda-induced irrational exuberance. Those sheeply are being played. This became clear to me due to what happened last night at the Hamburg Bitcoin meetup (I described this in this post https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7i6m84/are_you_fucking_out_of_your_mind/). This will destroy Bitcoin, imho. [insert phoenix from the ashes story about BCH]. It'll take a long fucking time, though, because the damage to the whole crypto space will be extensive and lasting. The opponent is winning this battle, but the war ain't over...

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

This comment
unpleasantly reminded me of the movie Wall Street 2
...

(tbh, 100k might be "my number" for Bitcoin Segwit...)

I have vastly more money (in fiat terms) in Bitcoin Segwit than any other asset so I should be happy about the price. But I have a very "creepy" feeling about this bubble. This might be the first Bitcoin bubble where a lot of "normal" (greedy) people will lose a lot of money (and boats, and houses, and spouses, ...).

And that Christoph starts believing into the "store of value" crap while we see such a mad influx of money... Eh this will hurt many people.

But what do I care. People have all the possibilities to inform themselves. Play with fire, expect to be burned. And good luck to Blockstream when the red candles start showing up. This won't end well.
[doublepost=1512661091][/doublepost]

@Norway Between the price action and the increasing signs of trouble at Bitfinex this feels like late 2013.

There hasn't been so much mainstream reporting 2013. Bitcoin is in the top 3 topics on a lot of news sites lately. And people start buying Bitcoin who can hardly manage to pay their rent on time..

btw, the arrogance of some "early investors" who bought Bitcoin this summer and start talking about "financial sovereignty" and what not while all they have is an entry in a database of some exchange is embarrassing.. What they have now is not an iota different to their old bank account.

 

[79b79aa8]

"Store of Value" isn't going to work in the long run. The reason for the runup is propaganda-induced irrational exuberance. [...] This will destroy Bitcoin, imho. [insert phoenix from the ashes story about BCH]. It'll take a long fucking time, though, because the damage to the whole crypto space will be extensive and lasting. The opponent is winning this battle, but the war ain't over...

possibly it will not take that long. the world was finally ready for bitcoin, fiat in the offing and ready to go . . . and bitcoin failed to show up -- or showed up all crippled anyhow. so some people are going to get burned, all those newfound experts who know how to buy, buy, buy, as long as price is going up, but have not thought about when to sell ...

yet when the dust settles, we will find that the world was ready for bitcoin for a reason: because there is a very real demand for a peer to peer, electronic, non inflationary digital currency and payment system. this demand will not go away when the bubble pops. and now the infrastructure is ready, the governance structure worked out.

so at that moment, bitcoin cash will be there, all ramped up. and it won't be a a few speculators timidly joining back in. it will be the steep part of the S curve.

 

[awemany]

so at that moment, bitcoin cash will be there, all ramped up. and it won't be a a few speculators timidly joining back in. it will be the steep part of the S curve.

I think what we have now is many folks who believe in the LN future plus people who believe in people who believe in LN plus people, well who pretty much like what their gurus tell them.

But common to all of this is a belief about the future utility.

I expect a despair phase as well, of course. When? I have absolutely no clue. I won't dare to time pure tulip-like bubbles like this one, as this is the quickest way to get burned in the market. This is actually old wisdom from when I grew up. I still think it holds true, and it holds very much true for crippled Bitcoin.

Now, after the despair phase, I think what will happen is an attitude of 'does this actually work to solve problems right now'.

And I see BCH being perfectly positioned then. I think BCH will move upwards in BTC ratio during the next crash, likely even gaining in $-value.

Very many people will still be 100% disillusioned by crypto then, however. But I think this will be the perfect time for the delicate little plant that is usage to grow again (slowly, and out of sight of the ignorant public once more). The same delicate little plant that the Core folks decided to kill.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

And at the same time on the other end of the spectrum we get more adoption:
Buy a private yacht, buy a Lamborghini, fly with a private jet.

Bitcoin SegWit has become the currency for the elite class instead of bringing economic freedom to the world.

Yes, and maybe this is ok. But I don't see a reason why the elite should not use Bitcoin Cash. What does Bitcoin Core provide what Cash is missing?

Today I made my first Bitcoin Cash purchase. I bought a steam key on Keys4Coins. It was really a pleasure, but the payment sucked. No block in more than 90 minutes. Than 3 blocks in 5 minutes, before it most blocks needed 20 minutes. I observed this before, and it seems the new EDA is not really working fine. I hope there will be a better one after the next hard fork.

I hope Bitcoin Cash can catch up with adoption, while Bitcoin Core will be dis-adopted.

When chatting about Steam with Bitcoin Core Fans, i noticed, that they are really not interested in cutting of the middle men. Some time ago, when I said to some Core Fan, that I have no intention of buying coffee with Bitcoin, since no digital currency can beat physical cash, he asked me if I'm crazy. Today another Core Fan told me to just use PayPal, as he doesn't understand why not.

Is it so hard to get the difference between using physical cash and paypal? Bitcoin is not here to surplace physical Cash, which is already a (nearly) perfect means of payment. It is here to surplace the middlemen like PayPal or MasterCard.

Being not able to do <$100 paymens without a middlemen is a serious step backward.

 

[79b79aa8]

the stupefying thing about "believing in the LN future" is that LN, patently, obviously, evidently, is NOT a trustless, peer to peer payment system.

bitcon cash -- satoshi's brainchild -- is here now. the lightning network -- a work in progress even at the conceptual level -- is not.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

@Christoph Bergmann

It is pretty simple: Either Bitcoin is integrated into the economy or it isn't. Bitcoin segwit won't work as a "anti government" store of value for long, if governments choose to close the shop. People are blinded by the current fiat value of BTC and think "Oh well I'll be rich.. When I buy my Lambo/House/boat with BTC, I don't care about a) whether I pay with BTC directly and b) 30 $ fees. I'll convert BTC to $ and buy my stuff." The "anti government, gold bug type" of people will tell you, that you don't need to buy coffee with Bitcoin, since the important thing is it's "censorship resistance" and "not centrally controlled issuance".

Well, there are very few exchanges and they are all pretty strictly under government watch.
When governments decided, that BTC was dangerous to their fiat monopoly they can just go for these choke points.

If everybody was actually able to use Bitcoin right now, it would infiltrate the society pretty fast. (like the internet did, like smartphones did..)

 

[AdrianX]

The disillusionment is going to hit hard and fast.

I don't think people have grasped whats happening, to be honest I don't know how to prepare for what I think is about to happen. @Zangelbert Bingledack said on reddit something else could pop this before wit happens. Case in point I can't use my regular bitcoin services as they are all contested)

It wouldn't surprise me if we have to look at the price chart in log scale to fit it to this Hype cycle.

Being a devoted student of this phenomenon in bitcoin I'm thinking the Take off Started in July 2017 and we are now entering the Mania Phase triggered by media attention.

@adamstgbit

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I've had a slight perspective shift after talking to some people who get the big picture of the world situation of why Bitcoin is a revolution but are Bitcoin newbies and currently really excited about small blocks. This debate has got us so focused on all the terribly wrong things Core has done that I think we've forgotten how much of a massive revolution even Core's crippled Bitcoin would be...if it didn't have to deal with competition for its network effect...which for the next few months it probably doesn't.

Plenty of time to reach $100,000 if nothing pricks the bubble in the meantime.

Copying from my reddit post today:

Imagine for a moment that spinoffs and altcoins were impossible, and BTC with low blocksize (and maybe layers on top) is all that could ever exist. No competition from altcoins or from Bitcoin Cash.

Would it be a revolution? Would it be worth investing in at these prices?

After a few minutes' thought, the answer is obviously YES. Most here will know me as an outspoken anti-Core guy, so hear me out...

Even at $20 fees, BTC - *with the benefit of no competition from other crypto* - allows many things that were never before possible in the world:

- perfect tax evasion for the wealthy

- easy money laundering for drug cartels

- Silk Road for large supplier-dealer purchases

- easy capital control evasion for Chinese and Venezuelans

- easy hedge against hyperinflation that no one can even know you hold

- easy ability to send very large amounts to anywhere in the world with no red tape, etc.

These are gigantic use cases, and even an ultra-crippled Bitcoin performs excellently at them *if free of competition*. It's not a ponzi as long as it has these amazing use cases backing it, which it does as long as it is *free of competition*. The BTC price would and should go to $1 million per coin on those uses alone, again, *if free of competition*.

And in that fantasy scenario, things like LN are just gravy. If they work, awesome. If they don't, these other use cases are still amazing.

But BTC most definitely isn't free of competition, you will say. There's Bitcoin Cash, or even other altcoins. That is the fatal flaw in Blockstream's plan. Indeed, BCH can come in and take all that commerce use that BTC left behind, take the commercial network effect for its own, and then get all those other uses cases for free and do them *better* than BTC.

In other words, sure, a horribly crippled Bitcoin is still revolutionary, but an uncrippled Bitcoin is far more revolutionary.

The problem for prospective investors is this: most people simply cannot take in the full awesomeness of Bitcoin. The fact that it didn't go to a million dollars in 2013 is proof enough of that.

They just see one or two benefits and they're sold on it, if they're going to be sold on it. BTC has plenty for that, and it is currently far in the lead by price and name-brand history, so since most even relatively savvy "smart money" investors will be clueless by the standards of the oldtimer bitcoiners that are common on this sub, they can easily end up piling into BTC for the revolution it iswould be if free from competition.

The kind of mania that can take BTC to $100,000 generally happens over the course of 2 or 3 months (look at historical logarithmic charts), which would likely be before a flippening has had a real chance to happen.

This is why I'm not selling all my BTC, despite finding the current state and apparent policy direction of the BTC chain preposterous.

All that has to happen for BTC to skyrocket (I mean *real* skyrocket, 2013-style, which we haven't seen yet) is for competition from BCH to take a few more months to kick in, and for LN to simply look like it *might* work to stave off competition long term (nevermind that Bitcoin Cash could just adopt LN if it worked; again most even smart-money investors aren't going to perceive such things, and there are network effect complications as well).

Long term it seems clear that Core's plan cannot work, but the market may need to ramp up in sophistication far more before it realizes that, and the impetus for that realization can probably only be a massive crash. In the meantime, a huge surge in BTC is still a possibility, despite it being a bubble in desperate search of a pin.