Verge went nuts lately -- I hope you caught that wave. From what I've personally read and seen, there is a lot of negative sentiment around Verge. A lot of people seem to think it only pumped because (1) it's cheap; and (b) McAfee shilled it not long ago. I don't hold any, but I certainly recognize those that did made a lot more money than me the last month. There's lots of good info on some twitter followers, you just have to sort through the ones trying to sell you their coin vs. give genuine analysis. I like to read @carpenoctom 's articles myself.
I don't think anyone is anyhow saying 50x is a bad return, just that there were even bigger ones happening. Regarding pyramid scheme, I again have to ask how you guys define one. In contrast to real pyramid schemes, there is an actual foundation and usage case in blockchain. Saying Bitcoin itself or other companies are a "pyramid scheme" is wrong when these are putting out a real product, actively develop in order to improve it and are providing solutions that will give the tech a viable meaning. You might say that the price speculation is misleading and people that are only looking to make a buck will get burned, but flat out saying this whole tech space, which is already heavily invested in by governments and companies, is a pyramid scheme isn't correct and reduces the complexity of this to pure financial aspects. If a company is providing a useful product and someone believes in its future, he isn't buying into a "pyramid scheme". People have been saying this for years now, unless you factually know the top of this market, the statement is pure speculation.
To clarify, the OP (and I) were talking about one specific coin. He was saying that coin seemed like a pyramid scheme ... and worth investing in. Not referring to Bitcoin or crypto in general. That's easy to say, but not really true. Just look at this thread - it's been around for 4 or 5 years. It wasn't until the last 3 weeks that everyone was suddenly talking about all these smaller alt-coins and looking for 50x winners and such. Before that, it was mostly about Bitcoin and discussions about its merits, etc. You, yourself, have decided that 2018 is when you're going to load up into alt-coins and are suddenly trying to move more cash into the space. That's not a criticism of you - it's true of just about everyone here and most other places, and you all may be 100% right. But smaller alt-coins have not been the talk of anyone on any large scale - until they all jumped by an order of magnitude this month. That's why they were tiny alt-coins, and that's why they were able to go up 50x over a few weeks. But the coins that do that are going to be the ones that no one is talking about. If you're finding these coins on reddit or from people tweeting or whatever, then you're part of the masses that are looking at something already discovered, rather than the person who's actually finding the diamond in the rough. It's the latter that find the coins that go up 50x at that point. That's why people constantly say "oh, I wish I had bought 2 weeks ago before it went up 500%" instead of "hey, I bought 2 weeks ago!". I have no idea what the future of all these cryptocurrencies is - no one does. But I can say that millions of people haven't suddenly discovered the one source of unlimited easy wealth in all of human history. Finance doesn't work like that. If you think you found it - and millions of others do as well - it's most likely not going to work out the way you think. (Also, please don't get me wrong - I'm not making investment advice, and not suggesting people don't invest in alt-coins. I play around in that arena myself. I'm just saying you shouldn't be looking at past performance when no one had heard of these things and correlate it to the future. You have millions more eyeballs on every crypto that comes out now, so it's going to be much harder to achieve those kinds of gains. You can still be early, but probably not as early as you could have been a month ago. All I'm suggesting is that people should keep realistic gains and goals in mind.)
I think its important to make a distinction between the technology behind bitcoin and bitcoin itself. Blockchain is immensely powerful and useful. It's being actively developed to eliminate fraud in a few areas. Its extremely early but blockchain will find a way into mainstream technologies soon enough. As for bitcoin, the whole thing is a bit absurd. Currencies are valued for price stability and liquidity. Currencies should be easily used and should be stable. That's why the US Dollar (or the Euro) has so much value. It's widely accepted (either directly or can easily be exchanged) and has little to no volatility. Meanwhile you have bitcoin which has become far more liquid (especially now that exchanges have matured) but the whole structure of bitcoin makes no sense. Bitcoin is inherently deflationary. The supply of money naturally restricts over time as bitcoin becomes harder and more expensive to mine. So there's literally no ability for the currency to achieve price stability. It will increase in value for perpetuity because the money supply will continue to stagnate over time. This logic was built in as a check on inflation (which the kooky gold standard nostaliga crowd loves) but its just created a permanent deflation spiral. And as a currency deflates, people have less incentive to use the currency (which is what is happening with bitcoin) so then it deflates even faster as people horde bitcoins. Combine that with speculators and its a formula for nonsense valuations of a currency that is only partially usable and completely unstable. So maybe the term pyramid scheme is wrong but the valuation of bitcoin isn't based on anything real. Its based on a fundamental flaw in its design (exponential restriction on money supply growth) and rampant speculation. The reason why the ponzi scheme analogy is thrown around is that while the money supply issue while ultimately drive up the value of bitcoin, the bigger driver is speculation. And speculation like this only works when others keep speculating. You have to keep finding people to buy bitcoin to drive up its value in order to create returns on previous investments. And this cycle has to repeat. And most importantly, bitcoin is supposed to be a currency. Currencies don't work when their value is driven off of speculation. So while blockchain technology is revolutionary in many ways, it has to be integrated into modern currency design with central banking. And really its value will be in non currency designs. Look at what Estonia is planning on with blockchain. They want to integrate it into all government IDs and services to eliminate fraud and protect the system from a certain neighbor (Russia). They already have a fantastic digital ID project going (as well as their e-residency program) and blockchain will provide immense value to them.
This is the biggest question I asked years ago on this thread and that no one could ever answer. Why do bitcoin-believers think something deflationary can work as a currency? Beyond the difficulty to mine, coins also go out of circulation (getting thrown away, etc). It's literally like printing a bunch of dollar bills and then never printing any new ones when old ones get torn up or destroyed. Why does anyone that could work as a functional currency? Store of value? Sure - as long as people continue to want them, it can work like gold or art or cabbage patch dolls. And as a useful service, I can see Bitcoin having some limited functionality - sending money around the world, for example (if they fix the transaction fee problem). But as a true currency? It just doesn't work.
This isn't true and I think you're judging far too much based on this thread. I've been following the altmarket all year and alts were debated like they are now the whole time, this is not because of one month. If you've been following the whole alt year, the December gains aren't even big when you see how a ton of alts went more than 100x over the year. People in crypto didn't just start talking about this now, the dream of finding the "next Bitcoin" has basically been around since the altmarket existed. Does it get statistically harder each month that passes? Of course, but saying the alt wave started late 2017 is plain wrong.
Yung-T is right on this ones. Alts have been very widely discussed practically all year long. I made more money on alts this past summer than anything else. Most recently, for me at least, my gains have been coming from Bitcoin. Should’ve been LTC to by I sold right before it took off.
Yeah, alts can be great, sometimes have to hodl for awhile but for a cheap investment it could pay big.
Crashing again. Anyone mind educating me why it's so volatile @Major @Yung-T With y'alls knowledge I should know why, when, and to what points. SIL
I dumped everything I bought in the 14s yesterday so I feel like I own cheaper bitcoin now. Need LC to rebound! Wait for it.. should have gotten more Ripple in the 60s
Not sure why moron SIL is tagging me multiple times, I've mentioned several times that December has been far too strong and predicted a harsh correction. Also said XRP is a buy short- to midterm.
SIL be like I'm a LTC whale bruh, own 3 of them! Don't @ me. You whales crash it, hmm? Moving the markets around with all that cash money?
Said it's not good short term to mid term to me, specifically. Again, care to explain the volatility since you're so educated? SIL
