The calm before the storm

[Skyfiller]

100% agree @DTL1982 pushing 45 here and have spent hours reading up on it and have absolutely no idea what it is about. Put 1K into bitcoin about 8? Years ago and have no idea what it is worth now. Leaving it for the kids so it’ll be worth good money by then or probably sod all 🙄. Tried 500 in these other ‘coins’ and lost the lot in a couple of weeks. No idea what it’s about or how it works, almost seems like a pyramid scam to me 😂

[Bigmarc]

That's because you guys are obviously not lefty hipster LBGTQ's, 😁 

I am looking at it as gambling but also similar to the dot com bubble, where all those internet companies went pop. The majority of stuff out there is c**p (copy and paste). Some will survive but most will disappear. 

 

[Roy]

This is why I think bitcoin is the perfect inheritance device.

Your (and son's) keys, your (and son's) coins.

What inheritance?  I've always held btc! 😊

Edited July 2, 2023 by Roy

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

16 hours ago, Skyfiller said:

100% agree @DTL1982 pushing 45 here and have spent hours reading up on it and have absolutely no idea what it is about. Put 1K into bitcoin about 8? Years ago and have no idea what it is worth now. Leaving it for the kids so it’ll be worth good money by then or probably sod all 🙄. Tried 500 in these other ‘coins’ and lost the lot in a couple of weeks. No idea what it’s about or how it works, almost seems like a pyramid scam to me 😂

That's basically what it is. As Buffett said he wouldn't accept all the BTC in the world for $20 as they only thing he could do with it is sell it someone else. In his words, "it relies on there being a bigger idiot out there willing to pay more for it than you did"

The general idea is the central banking system is a corrupt money printing machine. A better idea would be to have some cyber-criminals set up their own banking system and print their own money. That way we get to experience every financial crisis of the last 1000 years inside 10 years. Why have one corrupt global currency - USD - when you can have 10,000 controlled by people who have zero oversight and don't acquiesce to any laws? What could possibly go wrong?

If you put £1K into BTC 8 years ago then today that is worth something like £120K! You could buy 80 ounces of gold 😁

Edited July 2, 2023 by HonestMoneyGoldSilver
decimal point

[Bratnia]

6 hours ago, Roy said:

This is why I think bitcoin is the perfect inheritance device.

Your (and son's) keys, your (and son's) coins.

What inheritance?  I've always held btc! 😊

In the UK at least, we seem to be transitioning to a guilty until otherwise proven era and where the regular and tax rule books are ever more 'comprehensive' such that pretty much anyone can be deemed to be guilty of some breach of some rule(s) if investigated deeply enough. Son does something to attract a police raid of the home, dads cash/gold stash found during the raid and confiscated, subject to proof of where/when it was purchased and how the purchase was funded, otherwise declared as being the proceeds of illicit activities/money laundering. Btc/blockchain is a ledger/record of all the transactions ever made, whilst the transactors can be anonymous the actual transactions aren't, and can be associated to a particular conventional banking transaction - the bank account debit used to fund the purchase of Btc, or bank account where the sale proceeds from having sold Btc were credited.

The state has put the requirement that all banks must report all suspicious activities/transactions or otherwise risk losing their licence, the banks in turn flag all transactions as potentially being suspicious in order to avoid falling foul of that banking licence requirement - which is simply the feeding of all transactions by all banks to the state. Along with monitoring movements (mobile phones) and street cameras ...etc. that's paramount to a open-prison.

Prior to WW2 and most didn't pay any income tax as it was perceived as being none of the states business how much a person had/earned. A breach of their privacy. Nowadays such rights of privacy have been completely thrown away, widely accepted as being acceptable to have no privacy as "privacy is only required by criminals". 

For the innocent that desire privacy the ideal would be a bank that didn't feed the state, however such a bank wouldn't be permitted to operate within the country, and/or shops prevented from accepting that banks debit/credit cards as payment. So the only recourse for a innocent that desires privacy is to become criminal, but with the rules books as deep as they are everyone is already in that criminal category anyway, which incites a more general ignoring of the rules. The state profits from vices, drugs (alcohol, tobacco), gambling etc. has its heavies to impose its will and control (police/army) and everyone under that state control is considered as being a criminal, and where the state decides which of those are permitted to remain in the open-prison section or that are contained within locked cells.

[Bratnia]

Hadn't realised that it had been so long since (1848) money you deposited into banks became the banks money rather than the bank being custodial of your money.

Banks - debtor and creditor 

Quote

Foley v Hill (1848) 2 HLC 28, 9 ER 1002 is a judicial decision of the House of Lords in relation to the fundamental nature of a bank account. Together with Joachimson v Swiss Bank Corporation [1921] 3 KB 110 it forms part of the foundational cases relating to English banking law and the nature of a bank's relationship with its customer in relation to the account.

The case decided that a banker does not hold the sums in a bank account on trust for its customer. Instead the relationship between them is that of debtor and creditor. When the customer deposits money in the account it becomes the bank's money, and the bank's obligation to repay an equivalent sum (and any agreed interest) to the customer or the customer's order.

And banks of course play the heads they win, tails and taxpayers bail them out game-play. Either way the bankers receiving a big bonus (heads) or a golden pension (tails). High value criminality that rarely leads to imprisonment, whilst another that steals a drop in the ocean by comparison - might be locked up for years.

 

[n1k0s]

if i play devil's advocate: 

Warren Buffet also never invested in Apple of Microsoft or Tesla - which is, of course, fine as he admits he only invests in what he understands. But that means he missed the Tesla or Apple run. 

What bitcoin offers is a predictable monetary policy.

The issuance protocol cannot be changed and no further btc can be issued than what is foreseen. Unless there is a 51% agreement from the network which at current hashrate is highly unlikely to ever achieve. 

You know that there is work behind the mining (i.e. electricity) and each bitcoin unit is unique, verifiable and cannot be copied. That means that fair price is its mining price. Any premium or discount on top of that is due to supply/demand.

Bitcoin doesn't create any yield in the same way that gold doesn't either. That makes it a commodity and not a security.

As a monetary commodity it can play a role because it has gold properties (like scarcity) but it is also instantly transferable which gold isn't. Transaction fees are also low (a few EUR or fractions of it to transfer ml EUR). 

Yes, you don't hold it in your hands, it exists on the wifi and one has every right to be suspicious of that. But on the other hand, it has had an uptime of 99.99% and has never been hacked in its 14 year of history.

@HonestMoneyGoldSilver @Bigmarc @DTL1982

[sixgun]

On 29/06/2023 at 16:12, GoldCore said:

Gold and silver prices have declined in recent weeks as central banks have once again turned more ‘hawkish’ than was expected at the beginning of the year. 

 

i heard Maguire say yesterday that the levels of silver in the Shanghai Gold Exchange were the lowest ever. Silver in the West are very low levels - more and more people - proper sane people, not pumpers are talking about the low levels. India and China are syphoning up silver like no tomorrow. Serious tonnage of gold continues to be bought up - the spike down in gold to near $1900 this week triggered very large central bank purchases for delivery. 

In August BRICS+ will meet in South Africa as more and more of the Global South  queues up to join. The internet i look at is full of stories about a new digital gold currency system whilst the BBC asks whether the South Africans intend to arrest Putin as a war criminal 😂. If BRICS+ annouces a new gold currency system - (it may simply be for trading) - it will be a hundred nails in the coffin of the US dollar. All the chart patterns, all the Fed speak, Fed rates, all the smoke and mirrors will be as nothing. Earlier this year the Kenyan leader told his people to dump the dollar. Why did he do that? Does he know something? What the paper Ponzi scheme banks, the youtube pumpers and clueless pundits say will not matter. A few years ago the US threatened China that declaring a gold backed currency system would be an act of war (so China has been ready for years)- the clock has spun round a few times more since then. The world continues to change whilst the US calls trans admirals brave.

i do follow the charts to make a bit of alpha if i can but in the end people should prepare and keep stacking whilst all fools blow smoke rings up the Fed's arse.

Be ready the Empire is in its last days.

Edited July 2, 2023 by sixgun

[sixgun]

1 hour ago, HonestMoneyGoldSilver said:

If you put £1K into BTC 8 years ago then today that is worth something like £120K! You could buy 8 ounces of gold 😁

Yes and if you have bought shares in this and that and then put the winnings on the winner at Ascot you would be a millionaire ten times over.

BTC is not money. It is a speculation. The very reason you have £120k when 8 years ago you had £1k proves it is not money. We have seen BTC perform violent moves falling £10's of thousands and then rising the same. You cannot do business using something like this as money. It is gambling chips. Those pushing for BTC are really asking 'Wen da Moon?' - they aren't advocating for sound money. Most of the BTC is held in a handful of wallets. If we have a situation where he who holds the BTC makes the rules then control will be in the hands of a very few. BTC could be zero in a heartbeat - the Global South is stacking gold - it is in their blood and it used to be in the blood of the people in the West. Gold and silver on blockchain rails is the way things will be. That may well be confirmed in August. BTC is just a gamble - it is not money.

[DTL1982]

52 minutes ago, n1k0s said:

You know that there is work behind the mining (i.e. electricity) and each bitcoin unit is unique, verifiable and cannot be copied. That means that fair price is its mining price. 

Yes, you don't hold it in your hands, it exists on the wifi and one has every right to be suspicious of that.

@HonestMoneyGoldSilver @Bigmarc @DTL1982

Do we know there is work behind the “mining”? What exactly are they “mining”? Bits of data? Made up numbers on a spreadsheet? I think that is what confuses me the most about the whole thing. How can they mine something that doesn’t physically exist nor represent something that exists? Is it like the Black Mirror episode where they have to cycle for merits ? Basically just made up numbers on a screen? 

[sixgun]

17 minutes ago, DTL1982 said:

Do we know there is work behind the “mining”? What exactly are they “mining”? Bits of data? Made up numbers on a spreadsheet? I think that is what confuses me the most about the whole thing. How can they mine something that doesn’t physically exist nor represent something that exists? Is it like the Black Mirror episode where they have to cycle for merits ? Basically just made up numbers on a screen? 

As i understand it to send and receive BTC the miners need to do the calculations. One time i sent some BTC and it took days - i hadn't paid enough and the price of transfers had jumped up so i went to the back of the queue. i think it cost me $50 even then. This is not practical. Ah but you should have used another crypto which is cheaper and faster - so what is BTC about then? 
i sometimes wonder what will happen when there is no BTC to mine or the BTC price goes so low and the price of the electricity is too high for mining to be worthwhile. What happens then? 

Does BTC become something that sits there as an 'investment' and is only occassionally moved as it is too expensive to move. Then one morning the people realise the Emperor is wearing no clothes and BTC goes to zero. Remember the vast majority of BTC is held in a handful of wallets. Those who advocate BTC are not advocating for sound money, they are asking 'Wen da Moon?'

Edited July 2, 2023 by sixgun

[Bigmarc]

9 minutes ago, DTL1982 said:

Do we know there is work behind the “mining”? What exactly are they “mining”? Bits of data? Made up numbers on a spreadsheet? I think that is what confuses me the most about the whole thing. How can they mine something that doesn’t physically exist nor represent something that exists? Is it like the Black Mirror episode where they have to cycle for merits ? Basically just made up numbers on a screen? 

No idea, every corner I turn I have no idea. I was trying to explain it to a mate the other day. Basically buy some on ane exchange, pay to exchange it then pay to move it twice as you have to do a test transaction or you will loose it and store your 1000s of pounds on a Chinese device that you have to write the pass codes down on a piece of paper. He couldn't believe it, all the technology we have today and he has to pick up a pen and write down on a piece of paper. It's a hard sell. I am a bit of a gambler and risk taker so I have BTC Eth and a couple of terrible coins but I am fully aware that it's probably gone. 

I think the 4 year cycle is just enough time for students to leave school and start earning money so there is fresh blood to dump on. 

Another thing, the community is vile, and everyone is there to dump on someone at some point. 

Having said that I am hoping to turn my 10 sovereigns into 100 sovereigns at some point, that's the goal.

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

28 minutes ago, n1k0s said:

if i play devil's advocate: 

Warren Buffet also never invested in Apple of Microsoft or Tesla - which is, of course, fine as he admits he only invests in what he understands. But that means he missed the Tesla or Apple run. 

What bitcoin offers is a predictable monetary policy.

The issuance protocol cannot be changed and no further btc can be issued than what is foreseen. Unless there is a 51% agreement from the network which at current hashrate is highly unlikely to ever achieve. 

You know that there is work behind the mining (i.e. electricity) and each bitcoin unit is unique, verifiable and cannot be copied. That means that fair price is its mining price. Any premium or discount on top of that is due to supply/demand.

Bitcoin doesn't create any yield in the same way that gold doesn't either. That makes it a commodity and not a security.

As a monetary commodity it can play a role because it has gold properties (like scarcity) but it is also instantly transferable which gold isn't. Transaction fees are also low (a few EUR or fractions of it to transfer ml EUR). 

Yes, you don't hold it in your hands, it exists on the wifi and one has every right to be suspicious of that. But on the other hand, it has had an uptime of 99.99% and has never been hacked in its 14 year of history.

@HonestMoneyGoldSilver @Bigmarc @DTL1982

I agree with most of what you've said. Like the crypto evangelists I'm guilty of cherry picking narratives to promote and to suppress. I use Buffett as he's the most famous investor in the world and happens to share my views on crypto. I wasn't always anti-crypto, I used to think it was great but I had a perverse incentive

I understand Buffett's philosophy and that he only invests in things he understands, thus Berkshire has traditionally avoided tech companies. Berkshire does actually own 5%+ of Apple and bought when Apple was at roughly half its current valuation. I saw headlines today stating Apple's market cap ($3 trillion) is roughly equivalent to the UK's GDP (~ $3.2 trillion)!!

As for Tesla, it's a massive bubble. They got their "moat" status by being the first to mass-market and having a famous CEO but they are losing ground every day to traditional auto manufacturers and Chinese makers. It's about being able to mass-produce in acceptable volume with sufficient quality control, something Audi, BMW and Mercedes excel at. Teslas are notoriously poorly built and have many issues with quality and reliability. Roughly 90% of the entire production line for EVs is based in or controlled by China, including Tesla. Musk is now using Chinese-built Teslas for sale in US and EU markets. Tesla's days as top dog of the toy car industry are numbered

There are many incongruencies with BTC and cryptos. Wasted electricity is the proof of work and wasted disc space is the proof of stake/storage. Nvidia, who are incentivised to promote crypto, hate cryptos:

Nvidia says crypto hasn't produced anything useful for the world as it shifts focus to AI. Crypto miners feverishly bought GPUs from Nvidia amid the crypto boom, but those businesses have fizzled. "They bought a lot of stuff, and then eventually it collapsed, because it doesn't bring anything useful for society," Nvidia's CTO said.

What good is crypto doing for people, states or the planet? It's actually seriously detrimental. People are paying through the nose for power yet we have an enterprise the size of Argentina (population 47.3 million) being proud to waste electricity, chew up graphics cards and pump out carbon needlessly. I don't understand how the woke lefties square the circle

I somewhat disagree with your characterisation of BTC mining and pricing. I also disagree that BTC has any properties even remotely similar to physical gold, including scarcity. There are 10,000 other cryptos all claiming to be "digital gold", therefore none of them are digital gold.

Transaction fees are completely unworkable. I've used BTC a lot and while at times the fees can be negligible for a single transaction, when compounded over a yearly spend the fees are horrendous, it's a stealth tax. At times of high network load the fees are prohibitive if you wish to send in the next block. Then we have the even more crucial aspect of transaction lag and processing times. It will never be appropriate to sit and wait for your coins to clear at a cashier or in a restaurant, a toll booth, etc, etc. The current financial system accepts billions lost in fraud every year in the UK alone in order to facilitate instant payments and new payment methods like contactless and using phones or chips inserted in the body. Our system relies on instantaneous payment, it would cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars to sit and wait for BTC clearance. Of course there are other derivatives of BTC and alt-coins that have faster payment clearances (including Fed Now for USD) for local and international payments. That tech surely undermines the viability of BTC

We have an elderly an ageing population that will never be on board with this new technology, even paying using fiat on their phones is alien to them, never mind cryptocurrency. It might be a fad and acceptable for tech savvy youngsters but BTC is a joke as a currency

This is TL;DR again but for me the future is coins backed by physical commodities, a digital gold-standard if you like, which is being pioneered by US states like Texas. For a purely digital token like current cryptos, we need a quantum-resistant and fully private coin designed by or monitored by AI and a team of physicists. Such a coin would undermine the major global powers - USD, EUR, GBP, RMB, Yen - and they would never allow such a coin to come to fruition. That the current batch of cryptos are allowed to exist at all (with a heavy prejudice against privacy coins) should tell you everything you need to know about what is truly viable and what isn't. They attack privacy coins, so buy those. That is fraught with risk as central authorities are constantly trying to undermine the privacy protocols, offering bounties and rewards to any who help them with this task, and privacy coins are user unfriendly relative to the also a pain in the arse BTC. Like I said, the tech for a viable crypto doesn't exist yet. A digital currency backed 1-to-1 with physical gold and silver would be preferable regardless of advancements in cryptography, quantum tech and blockchain protocols. 

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

52 minutes ago, sixgun said:

Yes and if you have bought shares in this and that and then put the winnings on the winner at Ascot you would be a millionaire ten times over.

BTC is not money. It is a speculation. The very reason you have £120k when 8 years ago you had £1k proves it is not money. We have seen BTC perform violent moves falling £10's of thousands and then rising the same. You cannot do business using something like this as money. It is gambling chips. Those pushing for BTC are really asking 'Wen da Moon?' - they aren't advocating for sound money. Most of the BTC is held in a handful of wallets. If we have a situation where he who holds the BTC makes the rules then control will be in the hands of a very few. BTC could be zero in a heartbeat - the Global South is stacking gold - it is in their blood and it used to be in the blood of the people in the West. Gold and silver on blockchain rails is the way things will be. That may well be confirmed in August. BTC is just a gamble - it is not money.

Here we are in total agreement. I was merely saying the guy from Herefordshire who bought £1K in BTC those 8 years ago is now sitting on roughly £120K in unrealised gains. If it was me I would liquidate and buy 80 ounces of gold but that's just me. This is not financial advice nor a recommendation. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by HonestMoneyGoldSilver
decimal point

[Bigmarc]

36 minutes ago, sixgun said:

Does BTC become something that sits there as an 'investment' and is only occassionally moved as it is too expensive to move.

I think this is a problem, if the validators don't get paid then surely they would move to a more lucrative chain. BTC was supposed to be used as money but if it doesn't get the adoption or transaction volume then every 4 years it will be not as lucrative to participate in the network.

[Bigmarc]

37 minutes ago, HonestMoneyGoldSilver said:

Tesla's days as top dog of the toy car industry are numbered

Is Tesla a car company? Or an AI company? Yes they are probably in a bubble considering they are in the top ten by market cap but any other auto company is miles behind, maybe only one other in the top 50. I just assumed they made that much profit out of tech and innovation. 

[Uksilverstackers]

15 hours ago, Bigmarc said:

16 hours ago, HonestMoneyGoldSilver said:

 

Is Tesla a car company? Or an AI company? Yes they are probably in a bubble considering they are in the top ten by market cap but any other auto company is miles behind, maybe only one other in the top 50. I just assumed they made that much profit out of tech and innovation. 

Most of the major US EV manufacturers are adopting Tesla charging method, so there will be a massive Tesla charging point network required across the US.

[sixgun]

Well i never - would you credit this? i'm sure someone on the forum was talking about this a couple of days ago.
Here we have a tweet from the Russian Embassy in Kenya - this will kill the dollar and all Western fiat.
Gold on blockchain rails - it doesn't say blockchain but that is what it is going to be. The Kinesis partnership in Indonesia goes nationwide later the month. The KAU will become legal tender.

[Bigmarc]

I think they use the stellar network (xlm). Not bad for a s**t coin. 

[sixgun]

2 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

I think they use the stellar network (xlm). Not bad for a s**t coin. 

Yes Kinesis is on a branch, or whatever varients are called, of the stellar network. Not bad for a 1:1 gold and silver backed coin.

[DTL1982]

52 minutes ago, sixgun said:

Well i never - would you credit this? i'm sure someone on the forum was talking about this a couple of days ago.
Here we have a tweet from the Russian Embassy in Kenya - this will kill the dollar and all Western fiat.
Gold on blockchain rails - it doesn't say blockchain but that is what it is going to be. The Kinesis partnership in Indonesia goes nationwide later the month. The KAU will become legal tender.

The article this embassy post is referencing is from April btw.  Even if this come to fruition I doubt a third world currency is going to displace the dollar completely. What western nations are going to trade with a currency whose terms are dictated by China and Russia, two of the baddest actors currently on the world stage? 

[sixgun]

5 minutes ago, DTL1982 said:

The article this embassy post is referencing is from April btw.  Even if this come to fruition I doubt a third world currency is going to displace the dollar completely. What western nations are going to trade with a currency whose terms are dictated by China and Russia, two of the baddest actors currently on the world stage? 

Yes the article was published in April 2023 - that isn't important and wasn't the point of the post, it could just as easily have been published a year ago. What is important is the Russian embassy tweeted out 'The BRICS countries are planning to introduce a new trading currency, which will be backed by gold'. The BRICS conference in South Africa is in late August. Some people suspect they will annouced a gold backed currency at this conference. They are signalling to the world.

China put the idea of a gold backed yuan a few years back - the US said that would be declaration of war. So China was ready then. It also says the US was scared shltless by the prospect of a major gold backed trading currency. It would mean the end of the dollar and all the dollars going back to base (massive inflation). Now we have the prospect of a BRICS+ gold trading (commodity)currency the US is powerless. Sanction until the cows come home - you can't sanction the world and in any case your currency just turned into toilet paper. Pay us in gold or f**** off.

The baddest actor on the world stage is the US. It is a nation gone rogue several decades ago. You might ask yourself who will trade with a bankrupt nation with a confetti currency?  The West is dying - it has open borders, it has been deindustrialised, all the nations are bankrupt, corruption is at extremes - look at the fake President Brandon and his crime family. All the pillars of state are just as corrupt. The end is neigh for the US (and the West) - those who are awake know it.

[Bratnia]

11 hours ago, Uksilverstackers said:

Most of the major US EV manufacturers are adopting Tesla charging method, so there will be a massive Tesla charging point network required across the US.

And the need for a massive uplift of the power supply network. And come 7 years the issue of what to do with all of the useless batteries along with protests about how unclean battery production and disposal is on the environment. Hydrogen will be in vogue. Little table tennis sized balls that you drop in at re-fill stations in minutes and be on your way again or whatever, rather than sitting in a 2 hour queue at a filling station to only then get your 2 hour recharge time slot. Less obesity also (otherwise munching away whilst sitting around waiting for 4 hours).

[sixgun]

7 minutes ago, Bratnia said:

And the need for a massive uplift of the power supply network. And come 7 years the issue of what to do with all of the useless batteries along with protests about how unclean battery production and disposal is on the environment. Hydrogen will be in vogue. Little table tennis sized balls that you drop in at re-fill stations in minutes and be on your way again or whatever, rather than sitting in a 2 hour queue at a filling station to only then get your 2 hour recharge time slot. Less obesity also (otherwise munching away whilst sitting around waiting for 4 hours).

But where does this massive uplift in power come from?
The last 4 UK coalfired power stations are being closed down this year. They are backup - so there won't be any backup. Where do all the rare earths and silver come from for these EV's? They don't exist. Electric lorries where are they? They don't work. None of the Green Energy works. The economy is already collapsing and this will guarantee that. So there won't be hydrogen cars - not when you are Third World status with no productive economy. Brown sold off much of the gold - the rest will be 10x rehypothecated - the currency will be worthless. The average Joe will be stuffed. You can only crush the country so many times and then there is no bouncing back.

[Bigmarc]

39 minutes ago, sixgun said:

But where does this massive uplift in power come from?
The last 4 UK coalfired power stations are being closed down this year. They are backup - so there won't be any backup. Where do all the rare earths and silver come from for these EV's? They don't exist. Electric lorries where are they? They don't work. None of the Green Energy works. The economy is already collapsing and this will guarantee that. So there won't be hydrogen cars - not when you are Third World status with no productive economy. Brown sold off much of the gold - the rest will be 10x rehypothecated - the currency will be worthless. The average Joe will be stuffed. You can only crush the country so many times and then there is no bouncing back.

https://www.vauxhall.co.uk/experience/vauxhall-news/2021/05/vauxhall-vivaro-e-hydrogen.html