Surreal

[MyFriend You]

40 minutes ago, taiping said:

Same could be said of Gold Troy Ounces. It can be divided into grams (or less), but nobody says that Gold has no value.

I was a hard Gold trader for a number of years, buy in Cambodia, sell in Vietnam, kilo or 2 at a time, made pretty good money, not labor intensive cause I like the tavel anyway, more like a hobby that made me money.

[tryasimight]

5 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

no doubt it is surreal, my unexpected early retirement in any case

You got fired? 

Sorry to hear that. 

[EddieBaBaBoBo]

From the web:

 

One day a merchant came to the village to buy monkeys. He announced that he will buy the monkeys at $100 each. Villagers wondered why somebody would want to buy stray monkeys at $100 each? Still, a few people caught some monkeys and sold them to the merchant. This news spread and more people caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

 

Then, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each. The villagers sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each. Then the merchant announced he will buy at $500 each! It took a lot of effort but finally, the villagers caught the remaining six monkeys, and they received $500 each.

Then the merchant announced he will buy monkeys at $1,000 each! The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell. Then, the merchant’s employee told the villagers that he will secretly sell some monkeys at $700 so that the villagers can make $300. Rich people bought monkeys in big lots. Poor people borrowed money and bought monkeys.

 

The villagers waited for the merchant to return. But nobody came. They ran to the employee’s house. But he was missing too.

 

Too late, the villagers realized that they have bought useless stray monkeys at $700 each but are unable to sell them.

 

Bitcoin is the next monkey business. It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a few people filthy rich.

[Sirbergan]

5 hours ago, DDbkh said:

The latest problem for these crypto currencies is that banks refuse to accept funds from cryptos because they rightly fear money laundering. 

Read about Ripple and XRP,  just one of many cryptos that are not anonymously transferred and could change the money transfer system as we know it - a ledger using blockchain technology to allow very fast and cheap international transfers from bank A to bank B at a low cost – which is further reduced to a fraction of a cent in just 4 seconds if the banks opt to use their crupto currency XRP – a lot of Asian banks are already piling up and has started using their ledger (SBI Japan for one).

[kekalot]

Krungsri is using Ripple and another one already too

[kekalot]

9 minutes ago, EddieBaBaBoBo said:

From the web:

 

One day a merchant came to the village to buy monkeys. He announced that he will buy the monkeys at $100 each. Villagers wondered why somebody would want to buy stray monkeys at $100 each? Still, a few people caught some monkeys and sold them to the merchant. This news spread and more people caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

 

Then, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each. The villagers sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each. Then the merchant announced he will buy at $500 each! It took a lot of effort but finally, the villagers caught the remaining six monkeys, and they received $500 each.

Then the merchant announced he will buy monkeys at $1,000 each! The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell. Then, the merchant’s employee told the villagers that he will secretly sell some monkeys at $700 so that the villagers can make $300. Rich people bought monkeys in big lots. Poor people borrowed money and bought monkeys.

 

The villagers waited for the merchant to return. But nobody came. They ran to the employee’s house. But he was missing too.

 

Too late, the villagers realized that they have bought useless stray monkeys at $700 each but are unable to sell them.

 

Bitcoin is the next monkey business. It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a few people filthy rich.

the point where this story fails vs Bitcoin is that there is not JUST one merchant.

 

there are millions of them, and some of them don't give a crap if you want to buy their bitcoin for $10,000 or $20,000 because they will not sell it under $50,000 (or $100,000)

weak hands will sell it for less but then when all the weak hands selling low (or at loss) are done.. there will only be the ones selling at $50,000 left then the price will be $50,000

 

in the end, it doesn't matter if you don't understand how limited availability works, you can still use dollars who get printed in the billions every year and enjoy inflation.

 

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

 

it's been "dead" 236 times now

[Sirbergan]

4 minutes ago, EddieBaBaBoBo said:

From the web:

 

One day a merchant came to the village to buy monkeys. He announced that he will buy the monkeys at $100 each. Villagers wondered why somebody would want to buy stray monkeys at $100 each? Still, a few people caught some monkeys and sold them to the merchant. This news spread and more people caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

 

Then, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each. The villagers sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each. Then the merchant announced he will buy at $500 each! It took a lot of effort but finally, the villagers caught the remaining six monkeys, and they received $500 each.

Then the merchant announced he will buy monkeys at $1,000 each! The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell. Then, the merchant’s employee told the villagers that he will secretly sell some monkeys at $700 so that the villagers can make $300. Rich people bought monkeys in big lots. Poor people borrowed money and bought monkeys.

 

The villagers waited for the merchant to return. But nobody came. They ran to the employee’s house. But he was missing too.

 

Too late, the villagers realized that they have bought useless stray monkeys at $700 each but are unable to sell them.

 

Bitcoin is the next monkey business. It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a few people filthy rich.

The flaw in your story, is that it completely ignores the fact that a lot of people are fed up with governments controlling a "value" that is actually even more fictional than crypto currencies. A dollar is worth around 32 baht because our governments says so, without any of us having a say in the matter. They print the shit out of it, and none of us has a say in the matter – we're supposed to sit back and accept this system that everyone knows is completely corrupt and flawed.

 

Supply and demand should be the only thing that determines value, that applies to the value of currencies as well.

[Sirbergan]

Double post, please ignore.

[phycokiller]

21 minutes ago, tryasimight said:

You got fired? 

Sorry to hear that. 

its ok, firing yourself is kind of fun, if you ever get the spare cash you should try it

[tryasimight]

9 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

its ok, firing yourself is kind of fun, if you ever get the spare cash you should try it

I've got plenty of cash.  I also enjoy my work,  it is very satisfying in a non monetary sense. 

[12DrinkMore]

24 minutes ago, kekalot said:

Krungsri is using Ripple and another one already too

 

The bank is making use of the Interledger protocol, which was invented at Ripple.

 

They are not using the crapto ripple.

 

[MyFriend You]

29 minutes ago, EddieBaBaBoBo said:

From the web:

 

One day a merchant came to the village to buy monkeys. He announced that he will buy the monkeys at $100 each. Villagers wondered why somebody would want to buy stray monkeys at $100 each? Still, a few people caught some monkeys and sold them to the merchant. This news spread and more people caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

 

Then, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each. The villagers sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each. Then the merchant announced he will buy at $500 each! It took a lot of effort but finally, the villagers caught the remaining six monkeys, and they received $500 each.

Then the merchant announced he will buy monkeys at $1,000 each! The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell. Then, the merchant’s employee told the villagers that he will secretly sell some monkeys at $700 so that the villagers can make $300. Rich people bought monkeys in big lots. Poor people borrowed money and bought monkeys.

 

The villagers waited for the merchant to return. But nobody came. They ran to the employee’s house. But he was missing too.

 

Too late, the villagers realized that they have bought useless stray monkeys at $700 each but are unable to sell them.

 

Bitcoin is the next monkey business. It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a few people filthy rich.

Good one, have to save this one and send it to my Nephew who has half the family on his side convinced to buy Cryptocurrency with him.

[Sirbergan]

4 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

The bank is making use of the Interledger protocol, which was invented at Ripple.

 

They are not using the crapto ripple.

 

Fantastic, You actually did some research on a coin. The banks are likely to implement it at some point, As it both speeds up the transactions and reduces the fee to a fraction of a cent. Ripple's got the best team in Crypto by far, and probably will revolutionize the banking industry. 3-5 days for an international transfer (SWIFT) is the past, you have to be crazy to think that will still happen in the future. So if Ripple doesn't succeed, they will have pushed SWIFT to speed up their transfers tremendously – but I find them partnering with SWIFT more likely than Ripple failing. Let's see.

 

A lot of banks are actually working on creating their own cryptos in order to implement smart contracts and speed up transactions - the reason that will fail, is because the banks would all have to agree on one coin for it to work. Never gonna happen.

[MyFriend You]

14 minutes ago, TunnelRat69 said:

Good one, have to save this one and send it to my Nephew who has half the family on his side convinced to buy Cryptocurrency with him.

Of course he doesn't have his own money, wants them to "invest"  I would send him a Dollar and see what he does with it.

[12DrinkMore]

57 minutes ago, Sirbergan said:

A dollar is worth around 32 baht because our governments says so, without any of us having a say in the matter. They print the shit out of it, and none of us has a say in the matter – we're supposed to sit back and accept this system that everyone knows is completely corrupt and flawed.

 

It is worth 32 Baht because the markets have determined that price, based on trade, economic outlook, interest rates, forecasted demand for the currency and a bit of gambling. Governments do not have the power to dictate a price in a modern economy that trades internationally, even if they would like to.

97% of the "currency" in circulation is issued by the private commercial banks in the form of loans. If people did not want to borrow, the banks could not issue loans. The banks can, at times, issue too much or too little, leading us around into and out of recessions. Essentially the number of borrowers determines how much currency is issued.

 

The current system is certainly not completely corrupt. It is not perfect, but there is not really a viable alternative. And generally it works.

 

 

[MyFriend You]

4 hours ago, Brunolem said:

 

Not in yours, mine, or our Kids, Grandkids or Great Great Grand kid's lifetimes.  Maybe next Century .,

[12DrinkMore]

29 minutes ago, Sirbergan said:

3-5 days for an international transfer (SWIFT) is the past, you have to be crazy to think that will still happen in the future. So if Ripple doesn't succeed, they will have pushed SWIFT to speed up their transfers tremendously – but I find them partnering with SWIFT more likely than Ripple failing. Let's see.

 

Ease up on the snide remarks.

 

Last international transfer I made was four weeks ago. Less than three minutes between hitting "accept" in an Australian bank account and getting an SMS from my recipient bank saying the funds had arrived, been exchanged and available. Six months I transferred from the Bangkok bank. From going to the bank to receiving the funds took about five hours. Probably only because I am not allowed to initiate international transfers through online banking in Thailand, and have to fill in blasted paper which gets sent to Bangkok by fax.

 

But I don't think we are disagreeing.

 

My position is clear. The 3,000 odd craptos are 99.99% lacking in substance and most will disappear. A few companies will make huge profits if they can manage to license a product into widespread use. But it is impossible to know which horse to back, and even then, none that I know of have any stock market presence so it is impossible to buy shares anyway.

 

There are also significant challenges of monetising

 

- by  patenting a product which is based on OpenSource code.

 

- it is possible for relatively small development teams to use the OpenSource code and github to develop these platforms, and it is getting easier daily. I can imagine that the banks and large companies will move towards taking this inhouse and develop systems internally.

 

It appears that a lot of enthusiasts are prepared to contribute to the technology development for free, and certainly all those testing guinea pigs, namely the crapto traders, are testing the concepts and platforms for free.

 

Ultimately I do not know how much money will be made and by whom, your guess is probably better than mine......

 

 

 

[lkn]

26 minutes ago, Sirbergan said:

Fantastic, You actually did some research on a coin. The banks are likely to implement it at some point, As it both speeds up the transactions and reduces the fee to a fraction of a cent. Ripple's got the best team in Crypto by far, and probably will revolutionize the banking industry. 3-5 days for an international transfer (SWIFT) is the past, you have to be crazy to think that will still happen in the future. So if Ripple doesn't succeed, they will have pushed SWIFT to speed up their transfers tremendously – but I find them partnering with SWIFT more likely than Ripple failing. Let's see.

 

A lot of banks are actually working on creating their own cryptos in order to implement smart contracts and speed up transactions - the reason that will fail, is because the banks would all have to agree on one coin for it to work. Never gonna happen.

You honestly think that banks don’t know how to make instant transfers?

 

VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, and probably a few others have done instant transfers for more than a decade.

 

Most countries can do domestic bank transfers instantly, many free of charge or very cheap.

 

You think “blockchain technology” is required to get signed messages from one bank to another?

 

I agree that banks (can) suck with respect to speed and price of international transfers, but it is absolutely not because their IT people do not know how to make it faster/cheaper.

 

As for XRP, you really think banks will adopt a bridging currency that would make the founders some of the wealthiest people in the world? And I believe eurodollars already work quite well as a bridging currency, not really solving a problem here.

[Brunolem]

27 minutes ago, TunnelRat69 said:

Not in yours, mine, or our Kids, Grandkids or Great Great Grand kid's lifetimes.  Maybe next Century .,

How many paper currencies do you know that have lasted more than 100 years?

 

Do you really think that central banks are going to be able to keep printing money with both hands while keeping interest rates close to zero for another 100 years?

 

Since 2008, we have entered the final stage of this economic cycle based on unlimited debt and unlimited money creation...like a party gone out of control...its looks wonderful while it lasts...then comes the hangover...

[12DrinkMore]

8 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

How many paper currencies do you know that have lasted more than 100 years?

 

Not really important. Currencies should not be considered a longterm store of value. You have to invest in real income producing assets or physical assets such as property.

 

10 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

Do you really think that central banks are going to be able to keep printing money with both hands while keeping interest rates close to zero for another 100 years?

 

Probably not. ZIRP and QE have only been going on for a decade, the US is tightening and other countries will slowly follow. But which adverse effects have you personally experienced due to QE and ZIRP?

 

Investors in the stock markets have done very well, property owners have done well, inflation has been benign, there is a major problem with wage stagnation, but that is more due to globalisation and the incredibly efficient manufacturing and distribution networks that now exist. And we have Lazada.

 

13 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

Since 2008, we have entered the final stage of this economic cycle based on unlimited debt and unlimited money creation...like a party gone out of control...its looks wonderful while it lasts...then comes the hangover...

 

Messrs Schiff and Kaiser have been having a bad influence on you. Try to wean yourself off them. They are a bad influence.

 

On the contrary, the indications are that the world's economy is relatively healthy.

 

As always there are locations that are doing better like Asia, slowly improving like the US of A, floundering around like Europe, and going down the tubes like the UK.

 

[MyFriend You]

20 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

How many paper currencies do you know that have lasted more than 100 years?

US Dollar, Great Britain Pound............I could go on but I am hungry and have to go out to eat.

[taiping]

Stick to fiat currencies, no problem.

[Brunolem]

24 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

 But which adverse effects have you personally experienced due to QE and ZIRP?

 

Investors in the stock markets have done very well, property owners have done well, inflation has been benign, there is a major problem with wage stagnation, but that is more due to globalisation and the incredibly efficient manufacturing and distribution networks that now exist. And we have Lazada.

 

 

Messrs Schiff and Kaiser have been having a bad influence on you. Try to wean yourself off them. They are a bad influence.

 

On the contrary, the indications are that the world's economy is relatively healthy.

You don't feel the adverse effects of doping (ZIRP, QE...) as long as you get your regular dose.

 

That's when it stops that you feel the pain.

How would the economy fare with normal interest rates, between 4 and 5%?

It would collapse right away!

Of course, the markets and everything else are doing fine...with 3 to 5 dollars (depending on the country) of extra money, and debt, created, for each dollar of extra GDP.

Anyone can do that, as long as one has got a nice money printer in one's basement!

 

As for Schiff and Kaiser, they are far far from being alone...I could name a long list: Bonner, Casey and his colleagues, Faber, Rogers, Maloney, Taleb...there are dozens of them, and they all have been proven right in the past, having the money to show for it.

 

One can wonder how an economy can be healthy with the load of debt, in the hundreds of trillions, it carries?

The tremor in 2008 was the result of too much debt...since then the load has increased by 40%!

[Skeptic7]

6 hours ago, taiping said:

PLEASE 12DrinkMore, if you find cryptos "incomprehensible" then just don't get involved with it. Simple as that. Since you don't understand, then what's the point of posting your thoughts on TV? In order to support your ego? Why?

Ridiculous. It is YOU who should turn your attention elsewhere if you don't like the thread. Stop wasting our time, as well as your own. 12Drink is the OP...get it? He started the thread. If you don't like it...go elsewhere and find a thread more suitable to your liking. E-Z! 

[Brunolem]

39 minutes ago, TunnelRat69 said:

US Dollar, Great Britain Pound............I could go on but I am hungry and have to go out to eat.

Only in name!

Today's USD has nothing to do with the one of a hundred years ago.

The actual purely fiat USD was born in 1971, on August 15 precisely.

At that time, it was worth 35 dollars for an ounce of gold.

Today, it is worth 1,350 dollars for the same ounce.

I will let you the pleasure of calculating the devaluation...

[12DrinkMore]

20 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

The tremor in 2008 was the result of too much debt...since then the load has increased by 40%!

 

There was too much lending by the banks to a relatively small number of subprime borrowers. If the loans had stayed with the small issuing banks there would not have been such a huge crisis. However, the loans were packaged up into blocks, rated incorrectly by the rating agencies and flogged off to unsuspecting companies as high quality in the States and Europe.

 

These companies, operating in the shadow banking sector, used these assets to raise liquidity. Once the cat was out of the bag, the shadow banking sector  completely lost trust in the assets they were mutually accepting as collateral and so liquidity dried up entirely. That was the catalyst for the next phase, where companies could not get loans to finance operations, stocks were being sold to raise capital and so on.

 

It was not too much debt in absolute terms. It was too much incorrectly rated debt in the system causing a lack of trust and confidence.

 

[taiping]

48 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

Ridiculous. It is YOU who should turn your attention elsewhere if you don't like the thread. Stop wasting our time, as well as your own. 12Drink is the OP...get it? He started the thread. If you don't like it...go elsewhere and find a thread more suitable to your liking. E-Z! 

Sorry, I withdraw the comment. I did not realize initially that the OP was an expert in sesquipedalian crapology. My mistake.

[12DrinkMore]

10 hours ago, taiping said:

PLEASE 12DrinkMore, if you find cryptos "incomprehensible" then just don't get involved with it. Simple as that. Since you don't understand, then what's the point of posting your thoughts on TV? In order to support your ego? Why?

 

Well, I was hoping that knowledgeable people like you would come along and lift up the general level of understanding with a decent conversation and discussion.

You see, I am prepared to accept that my understanding and perceptions are wrong, lacking in depth or just plain stupid. And I will thank people for pointing that out, provided a valid counter argument has been given. I have found that clever, intelligent and thoughtful people are always prepared to assist someone genuinely interested in learning.

 

Those who constantly use ad hominem attacks never fit into that class, for whatever reason.

 

In every thread I have started I have strived to keep the discussion going and attract others interested in bouncing ideas around. It is the way we humans advance.

 

But thanks anyway for passing by.

 

[retoohs]

Crpto to banks is what Amazon is to bookshops and Netflix is to video stores. Alt currency is here to stay and us of the older generation just have problems getting our head around it. Bitcoin https://bitcoin.org/en/ will not survive imho, it is first generation crypto. Etherium https://www.ethereum.org/ is a 2nd gen coin and the platform many of the other coins and tokens are built on. Etherium is likely to survive because so many are reliant on it as a platform. Now we have 3rd gen coins/tokens arriving such as Pillar https://pillarproject.io/ and Veritasium http://veritas.veritaseum.com/ 

I finally bit the bullet last November, did my research and moved some money out of gold into crypto. Couldn't be happier, already cashed out the amount of my initial investment which is back in gold and now just watching the profits grow

[shaurene]

I will go with the experts tip.

Steve BS post on Warren Buffett.

"Never invest in anything you do not understand"

The so called investment experts in the States make it all sound a great money maker, all they want is for you to buy in.

Another good saying. "Stick to what you know"