The Cipher

I'll explain this one. Although it could also be Googled as well. What determines the real-time stock price in any public market (tradfi or crypto) is bid-ask pressure. Prices are marked based on the moving bid-ask equilibrium on exchanges during open-trading periods, which for crypto is 24/7 (hey, an innovation in action!). Essentially the market price is given by the price of the most recent transaction. So the floating value of your asset is always marked to that price. But what would happen if a ton of people wanted to sell at once? Well, the massive number of orders on one side of the trade would need to find counterparties on the other side to fill them, creating a buyer's market and pushing down prices to find a willing buyer. So realized returns for market participants would (a) differ from each other; and (b) deviate from the previous equilibrium price. If there were no willing buyers at all, the asset value would drop to zero. This is how all financial markets function. It is not a quirk of crypto. For instance if every shareholder of AAPL wanted to liquidate at the same time, they would encounter an identical problem. In public markets where nobody wants to sell a stock and folks want to buy (think positive earning surprise), prices quickly gap up. To hammer the point home, do you own real estate? If so, did real estate in <your home city here> appreciate since the start of the pandemic? How did everyone end up with more nominal value than they put in? Now what would happen if everyone tried to realize those values at the same time by putting their houses up for sale? So hopefully that clears this issue up. --- Bonus note: The peculiarities of the crypto market result in price movements that happen a lot faster than most other asset classes. Reasons for this include coins off exchanges; illiquidity; availability and use of callable leverage; leverage rehypothecation; and herding behavior resulting in market participants that tend to cluster on one side of a trade depending on fear/greed consensus.

Some random problems/innovations from the general crypto space; no particular order: Major potential for opex reduction. Uniquely verifiable information - prevention of counterfeiting, proof of ownership, and veracity of records. Decentralized worldwide networks not subject to a central control point and related vulnerabilities. 24/7 markets traded globally. Cheaper remittances and transfers w/ instant settlement. Store of electrical power generated during off-peak times. Source of catch-up growth; applies to entities ranging from nation states through to individuals. Intermediary removal via immutable records on blockchain, as well as smart contracts, open many avenues for intermediary reduction or removal. Potential for structurally higher yield options for retail investors even in a theoretically mature market via removal of bank spreads - a specific form of intermediary removal. NFTs are becoming a foundational and essential keystone block of the metaverse, which is increasingly being built out on Ethereum. There's more. I condensed that into an annoying-to-read paragraph of single sentences, but every one of those sentences is brimming with applications and can be expounded on in detail (no, I won't do it). There are a lot of issues with the crypto space, but "they don't solve any problems" is probably not the direction I, personally, would go in to start making a bear case.

Sorry. I didn't mean to insult British cuisine. I prefer it to Thai myself (sour tastes aren't my jam), but I couldn't help but clap back at a supposedly grown man making an entire thread to insult people with different tastes than him.

Dude, no offence, but how can you insult people who like Thai food and then up British food - a food that's literally mocked the world over for being bland? Now I'm not a huge fan of Thai food myself, and do think that British food is generally ok, but maybe consider that these things are subjective. Just eat what you enjoy and let other people eat what they enjoy without being made fun of for it.

If this thread isn't the world's best example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action, then I dk. ????

Oh, word. So am I. Most people on here are like 30 years older than us, so my brain just takes shortcuts. Sorry about jumping to conclusions there.

Is it tho? Most of you guys are boomers, so during the relevant period in question, dollar-cost-averaging into the SPX would probably have gotten you there (source). Might not be so easy for the generation coming up, but we'll see. My assumptions were also conservative in other ways. Assumed lump sum savings at the end of the year (ie, no intra-period compounding of new savings), assumed zero inheritance, assumed no net worth from primary residence. Again, not trying to be a dick here. I just meant to note that I'm surprised by people's general lack of savings in retirement.

Way to jump to conclusions, bruh. The link you provided is a little amusing because I'm actually an investment manager myself lol. And we're generally steering clear of China for investment purposes as well at the moment. Regulatory risk in the current environment is high and it's clear that gov is interested in bringing about structural reform with minimal regard for institutional investor feelings at the current time. I think there will probably be deals to be had once the waters calm, but I'm not sure when that will be. But the perspective of an investor can be very different from the perspective of an administration. Rightly or wrongly, this government seems to be enacting a rock-the-boat agenda that is willing to endure short term pain and volatility in pursuit for what they see as a long-term plan for the state and society. And you can love it or hate it. This game is waaaaaay bigger than each of us, and the players don't care at all what we think. But it's disingenuous to project your hopes and desires of a house-of-cards style collapse on a situation where that conclusion doesn't fit the evidence.

Strongly advise against buying a Rolex, but if your heart it set on it Jomashop (hyperlinked) might have what you need.

Well, I'm at work so will have to be succinct. Briefly, some of you guys are overly focused on second-order effects without considering the why of those effects in the context of the country and society in which they're occurring. For instance, why is Evergrande verging on default? Why did CN tech and edu companies see a hit to valuations earlier this year? And why did casino and gaming companies see a more recent slide? Hint: There's a common thread to many of the items that the poster I originally replied to raised. Then consider why triggering these short-term difficulties might be the play for an agent whose horizon is very long-term rather than focused on the next-quarter or next-election-cycle.

Wow. This is how normies see the situation? Very interesting insight.

At first I was gonna answer this for the 1,359,329,494th time on here, but then I thought I'd just get straight to asking what we all really want to know. ... Are you Grand Papillon's alt account?

Your comment got me curious so I looked up the actual numbers. Here's comprehensive data from Canada. 54,773,928 doses administered. 16,090 adverse events of any kind. 0.029% likelihood of some sort of adverse event. So that would be 99.97% chance of no adverse event. So in a school with 500 children, 0.15 kids (less than 1 kid lol) would have an adverse event of any kind. I'm well aware that our response to Covid has been wildly hysterical and not based on any kind of proportionality to the threat. If it were up to me, kids wouldn't need the vaccine to go to school. But it isn't up to me. OP is free to do what he likes, but he did post this thread asking for advice. And my advice is that based on the probabilities, it isn't worth missing out on an education just to avoid the hilariously miniscule risk from vaccination.

Don't let this place get you down, man. Remember that this board is made up of mostly one specific type of foreigner in Thailand and not everyone else is so closed off. Personally I'd welcome someone saying hi every now and again as long as they weren't like, a complete weirdo.

Well based on the stories in this thread, no wonder the Thai government is trying to improve the quality of foreigner in Thailand. Can you blame them? ????

Probably not going to find too much alpha on AseanNow. If you're genuinely looking to read crypto-specific macro and project updates from experts, those discussions tend to happen on Discord, Twitter, and Substack. Be careful on Twitter. Some of the high-follower accounts are just shilling coins for personal gain, so make sure you know what to look out for. Here's an example of the kind of stuff you'll want to read at least a couple of times per week. It's a 24/7 market, so if you're moving up the risk curve into altcoins, you'd better be sure you're keeping on top of things.

99%+ chance your daughter will be fine. Is she at any real risk of Covid? No. So does she need the vaccine? Also no. But she does need an education, and rightly or wrongly, her vaccine status apparently determines her access to education in the near future. So I would just comply with this because the risk of an adverse outcome is really low, and the inconvenience of non-compliance is high.

They're probably the guys on this thread that are terrified you'll ask them for money next ????.

Hmm, in my limited experience the people who plan are usually the ones that put themselves in a position to get lucky. But sure, no doubt blind luck does play a big part too.

Honest question, how much do you guys save a month? Or like, what would you consider a normal amount of monthly savings? I'm not trying to come across like a jerk, but I'm always a little surprised that there are so many people who are in the situation quoted above. if you save just $1,000 a month ($12k/yr) starting at age 30 and invest it at 8% net, you'll retire at 65 with over $2M in savings. If you change that $1,000 to just $500, you'd still make it to over $1M in the same timeframe.

Well the robots are going to be owned by someone. In this scenario wealth would probably concentrate there, so you'd tax those guys. And they'll probably pay. Nobody wants a world where billions of people have nothing to lose and no hope for the future. All the money in the world is meaningless if you live in a world where you can't enjoy the wealth.

I'm in a relatively advantageous position compared to many other people in the same age bracket and I still worry about my own future pretty regularly. Industry disruption is already so fast and will probably only get faster. The march towards ever greater automation is probably inevitable and can be pretty scary to contemplate. What comforts me a little is the thought that if I'm rendered uncompetitive, billions of other people are going to be as well - and probably sooner. Societies won't be able to function without some type major reform at that point, and so I expect societies to eventually work out some sort of new social contract in response to these pressures. Probably including some form of UBI or heavily subsidized living. So in the end I think that most people will probably be at least ok, but given the state of politics these days, the road to get there might be fraught with volatility.

Yeah, no. I was hired to an IB desk in Hong Kong right out of college. Had to wear a suit every day, plus ties on days with external meetings. The superiority rush gets old in under a month when you realize that (i) nobody cares and also that (ii) it's hot af and generally uncomfortable. Have since swapped the suit out for athleisure most days and am never going back. Outfits look as cool as ever and are waaay more comfortable at the same time. Always long pants and closed-toe shoes tho. It's not amateur hour here.

Excellent question. But when has anything about this pandemic been even remotely logical or proportionate. Not sure why they'd suddenly start leading with logic now. Overall any movement in the direction of normalization is good movement, says I.

Excellent! Another step in the right direction.