Over to you crypto fanboys

[Surelynot]

1 minute ago, ukrules said:

 

What happens on the last Friday of each month?

The wife relents.....?

[Susco]

14 minutes ago, ukrules said:

 

What happens on the last Friday of each month?

 

I don't know, but we still have 6 days to find that out, unless you want to reveal the secret already

[ukrules]

8 minutes ago, Susco said:

 

I don't know, but we still have 6 days to find that out, unless you want to reveal the secret already

 

In truth you should already be well aware of what I'm talking about if you're trading any markets, I'm sure someone here knows what I'm on about.

 

[Walker88]

There's an astonishing lack of understanding about how markets work. That lack of understanding is why bubbles collapse and leave most folks in tears.

 

The biggest error is 'marking to market', as if everyone could realize that price if they chose to liquidate. A small player in an asset that trades sufficient size can be okay if he/she isn't greedy. He might be able to realize the last price, that is, the last market price. Too often in a bubble, however, the offer outruns the market, and the greatest fool chases the offer with his bid. Nobody wants to sell because they have convinced themselves they are on a 'rocket ship to the moon'. That creates a massive gap between the bid and ask, at least in size. Still, everybody marks their position to market, assuming they can realize that price.

 

Then selling enters the market. Everybody who wants to be long is already long, so the bid side of the market is thin. One seller can blow through dozens of price levels. This happened in Bitcoin in the last week or two, with the "asset" losing half its supposed value. Those who marked their position to market above $65K are beginning to realize the meaning of the old trader's adage: "A paper gain is a paper gain, but a paper loss is real money'.

 

The fact is, that high value was an illusion. Not every Bitcoin holder could realize that price. Only a few could. the rest, trying to escape a tumbling market, drove it all the way to where EITHER sufficient bids entered to support it at around $33000, OR ELSE longs decided to hold their position 'and wait for a rebound'. In other words, cover your eyes and ears and refuse to see what happened.

 

Gold and silver were like that in April of 1980. From over $800 gold tumbled to around $250 by the late 1990s, and silver went from $48.50 to around $3.  The Nikkei was like that in 1989. It was at 38,915.87, 'obviously on its way to 40K and 50K', but it never made it. It tumbled quickly to around 21000. Those caught with longs assumed it would rebound. The problem was everybody who really wanted to be long was already long. The bid side of the market got really thin.  Slowly the disillusioned longs began to liquidate. Still the bid side was thin. Eventually the Nikkei found a bottom at around 8000. Longs sat on underwater positions for decades. In fact, owing to the peculiarities of Japanese accounting, Japanese pension funds are still full of stocks bought well above 35000 basis Nikkei (accounting allows them to hold at 'higher of cost or market').

 

So where is the bid not thin in Bitcoin? $30K? $25K? $5K? Will those bids remain after a 50% drubbing, or will even those 'bottom fishers' begin to realize that Bitcoin is a useless 'asset' unless there is someone willing to pay more than you paid. It's a game and a fad, but when the fad ends, it ends. Those who had fun trading it, if they see a thin market and desperate underwater longs hoping to get out, will either abandon the market completely, or else place their bids 30-40-80% below the current market.

 

Often the end of bubbles is only seen in retrospect. It should have occurred to some people that when one crypto currency suddenly becomes 50 crypto currencies, the barrier to entry is pretty small. "Create your own imaginary crypto and get rich!'. So much for 'finite supply'.

 

I will borrow a gag line from a cartoon back around 2005. A teacher asks students, "Okay, then raise your hand if your parents DIDN'T create a crypto currency" (the original cartoon asked about hedge fund).

[Susco]

5 minutes ago, ukrules said:

 

In truth you should already be well aware of what I'm talking about if you're trading any markets, I'm sure someone here knows what I'm on about.

 

 

Are you aware that we aren't the last Friday yet, so your comment has no relation to my post at all.

 

On top of that, we are on a Saturday, and crypto trades 24/7

[gearbox]

4 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

There's an astonishing lack of understanding about how markets work. That lack of understanding is why bubbles collapse and leave most folks in tears.

 

The biggest error is 'marking to market', as if everyone could realize that price if they chose to liquidate. A small player in an asset that trades sufficient size can be okay if he/she isn't greedy. He might be able to realize the last price, that is, the last market price. Too often in a bubble, however, the offer outruns the market, and the greatest fool chases the offer with his bid. Nobody wants to sell because they have convinced themselves they are on a 'rocket ship to the moon'. That creates a massive gap between the bid and ask, at least in size. Still, everybody marks their position to market, assuming they can realize that price.

 

Then selling enters the market. Everybody who wants to be long is already long, so the bid side of the market is thin. One seller can blow through dozens of price levels. This happened in Bitcoin in the last week or two, with the "asset" losing half its supposed value. Those who marked their position to market above $65K are beginning to realize the meaning of the old trader's adage: "A paper gain is a paper gain, but a paper loss is real money'.

 

The fact is, that high value was an illusion. Not every Bitcoin holder could realize that price. Only a few could. the rest, trying to escape a tumbling market, drove it all the way to where EITHER sufficient bids entered to support it at around $33000, OR ELSE longs decided to hold their position 'and wait for a rebound'. In other words, cover your eyes and ears and refuse to see what happened.

 

Gold and silver were like that in April of 1980. From over $800 gold tumbled to around $250 by the late 1990s, and silver went from $48.50 to around $3.  The Nikkei was like that in 1989. It was at 38,915.87, 'obviously on its way to 40K and 50K', but it never made it. It tumbled quickly to around 21000. Those caught with longs assumed it would rebound. The problem was everybody who really wanted to be long was already long. The bid side of the market got really thin.  Slowly the disillusioned longs began to liquidate. Still the bid side was thin. Eventually the Nikkei found a bottom at around 8000. Longs sat on underwater positions for decades. In fact, owing to the peculiarities of Japanese accounting, Japanese pension funds are still full of stocks bought well above 35000 basis Nikkei (accounting allows them to hold at 'higher of cost or market').

 

So where is the bid not thin in Bitcoin? $30K? $25K? $5K? Will those bids remain after a 50% drubbing, or will even those 'bottom fishers' begin to realize that Bitcoin is a useless 'asset' unless there is someone willing to pay more than you paid. It's a game and a fad, but when the fad ends, it ends. Those who had fun trading it, if they see a thin market and desperate underwater longs hoping to get out, will either abandon the market completely, or else place their bids 30-40-80% below the current market.

 

Often the end of bubbles is only seen in retrospect. It should have occurred to some people that when one crypto currency suddenly becomes 50 crypto currencies, the barrier to entry is pretty small. "Create your own imaginary crypto and get rich!'. So much for 'finite supply'.

 

I will borrow a gag line from a cartoon back around 2005. A teacher asks students, "Okay, then raise your hand if your parents DIDN'T create a crypto currency" (the original cartoon asked about hedge fund).

 

I've read somewhere that there are now around 4000 crypto currencies, give or take.  Doesn't look like we are going to run out of these any time soon. ????

[Walker88]

12 hours ago, gearbox said:

 

I've read somewhere that there are now around 4000 crypto currencies, give or take.  Doesn't look like we are going to run out of these any time soon. ????

4000 today can be 400,000 tomorrow. Heck, 4,000,000. Why not?

 

In many endeavors there are barriers to entry. Few people can build a car company from scratch, as the capital requirements are enormous. One either needs a novel idea, is a great salesman, or has piles of his own cash. (Elon Musk sort of had all three of those, and exploiting each made him, for a time, the richest person on the planet, at least on paper.)

 

Online businesses have smaller barriers, but over time those barriers become virtual and are difficult to penetrate. Think of 'search engines' (Remember Lycos, Altavista, Ask Jeeves?). There were a hundred or more back in the early days of Dot-com. Most fell by the wayside, and Google came out on top. Yes, there are others still, but Google is the undisputed king. Google then had, inter alia, the money to buy into CIA databases and DARPA's GPS satellite system and create its mapping and direction products. It also kept jumping into new online arenas from web browsers to email to app stores to anything where it can sell ads that most people block. Since it follows everyone everywhere, it can use algorithms to build profiles of all its users and sell that to companies who need to know who is a mark for toothpaste or blue jeans or breakfast cereal. And Google's cash register goes Ka-Ching!

 

The same sort of path was traveled by Amazon. Many tried to be what Amazon became, but its early success gave it the funding to build its entire acquisition and delivery system, establish all of its business relationships, and effectively make it next to impossible for any new entrant to eek out some meaningful space in the arena. It ain't just books anymore.

 

A similar story fits Facebook. It drove out its early competitors like MySpace and Friendster, and now nobody else is going to replace it. It had the funds to wildly overpay for anything that even remotely intruded into its space, like Instagram or WhatsApp. (A company like Linked-in beat Facebook to market, but it was too limited and almost erudite---business oriented. Its founders never considered the real value of such sites was in monetizing the New Narcissism. Mark Zuckerberg 'got it', found a way to monetize narcissism, and he's now worth $125 billion.)

 

(The Facebook story should give caution to Bitcoin fanbois. Yes, Bitcoin was first mover, but first movers often get overtaken by a new early entrant (think MySpace again, or Lycos getting jumped by Facebook and Google). A second or third mover can sit back and look at the first mover, see room for improvement, and enter with a better mousetrap.)

 

Anyway, none of those barriers for auto plants, search engines, online sales or social media exist for crypto.  Steal an algorithm, make sure you grab yourself a pile of whatever 'currency' you conjure, then sit back and unload into the euphoria that has been ensuing.  Anybody can create a crypto. Think of a catchy name, make up a cool story, figure out how to market it to pie-in-the-sky hopefuls, then listen to your personal, virtual cash register ring. Just make sure you cash out into fiat before folks figure out they can just conjure their own crypto instead of chasing yours into the stratosphere.

 

There might be room for a couple of cryptos. Terrorists and organized crime are always going to need clever ways to launder money and move funds around, and anti-govt or nihilist types will likely want to believe they can hide from prying eyes and the Black Helicopters of the Globalists. Of course when the primary user is a terrorist or criminal, intel services will find a way to penetrate the system and reveal those playing the game, so anonymity will be fleeting (how many here know that WhatsApp's supposedly impenetrable encryption can be read by major intel agencies?).

 

The grandest irony is that the oft-disparaged fiat currency has far more barriers to entry than the cryptos, that are supposedly better or more 'valuable' than it. For a fiat you first have to establish a country, then get all those living within your borders to accept and believe in your fiat (Even South Sudan pulled that off, while East Timor is still working on it). Banks in your country have to adopt it, because they are the core manufacturers ('miners' in the new crypto vernacular) of your fiat, though the Central Bank you likely establish for your country can also print it.

 

For conjuring your own crypto, all you need is an internet connection. Easy peasy.

 

Don't be the last one on your block or in your Facebook Group to create your own crypto! Do it before the masses catch on that it's all a sham.

[Susco]

21 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Few people can build a car company from scratch, as the capital requirements are enormous. One either needs a novel idea, is a great salesman, or has piles of his own cash. (Elon Musk sort of had all three of those, and exploiting each made him, for a time, the richest person on the planet, at least on paper.)

 

Only that Musk didn't build a car company.

 

Tesla was founded by Eberhard and Tarpenning, and Musk invested in it through the investment fund he was running, 1 year after the company existed

[fdsa]

I wonder how poor terrorists and drug traders survived before the appearence of crypto I believe it was very difficult for them to receive all those millions USD by wire transfer to their banks.

[Rampant Rabbit]

On 5/13/2021 at 3:47 PM, GrandPapillon said:

<deleted>, I mean Eton ????

 

damn, Elon !!! ????

Its  Noel really  its  just he's dyslexic.

[ThailandRyan]

20 minutes ago, fdsa said:

I wonder how poor terrorists and drug traders survived before the appearence of crypto I believe it was very difficult for them to receive all those millions USD by wire transfer to their banks.

cold hard cash was how they did it, no wire transfers, just cash deliveries just like the dope

[Susco]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:44 PM, ukrules said:

 

What happens on the last Friday of each month?

 

Friday comes closer, and since Musk most likely is now running a loss on his 1.5 Billion crypto investment, maybe he will make a statement on Friday about how much he loves crypto?

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Susco

[ukrules]

19 minutes ago, Susco said:

 

Friday comes closer, and since Musk most likely is now running a loss on his 1.5 Billion crypto investment, maybe he will make a statement on Friday about how much he loves crypto?

 

 

A lot of derivatives expire on Friday, we can see this in action towards the end of some of the previous months.

Those 'dips' aren't people randomly selling.

 

[Susco]

24 minutes ago, ukrules said:

 

A lot of derivatives expire on Friday, we can see this in action towards the end of some of the previous months.

Those 'dips' aren't people randomly selling.

 

 

You call this "dips"?

 

I didn't see it the previous months making 50% dips.

 

You're right it aren't random people selling, it are the big player running for the woods.,

 

This is what is really happening.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-crack-down-mining-cryptocurrencies-093000184.html

 

The latest statement, however, still stopped short of an outright ban on cryptocurrency mining. It also did not elaborate on the measures involved or scale of this crackdown.

"We should expect the relevant departments, including law enforcement, to come up with detailed measures to ban bitcoin mining in the near future," Li said.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Susco

[ukrules]

13 minutes ago, Susco said:

big player running for the woods

Lol

[cobra]

On 5/13/2021 at 9:59 PM, The Cipher said:

...  If you don't feel comfortable buying crypto, don't buy it. In fact, if you're a retiree and you do feel comfortable, at least hesitate before establishing a (risk-controlled) position and make sure you know what you're buying and why.....

 

Sage advice and the voice of reason,

 

Some high-end retirees / pensioners who invested early and cautiously

are being racked with anxiety from FOMO,

The reality is there simply isn't enough time to recover from a huge investment mis-step because, well, we're not dead yet but we can see it from here.

 

At some point I will include some crypto in my mix but it will certainly be conservative.

Edited May 23, 2021 by cobra

[Walker88]

13 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

cold hard cash was how they did it, no wire transfers, just cash deliveries just like the dope

They used the Hawala system and they used GIA Diamond certs. Sometimes they used various 'charities' as fronts.

[ukrules]

Did anyone buy the dip? It's going to be interesting to see the price action between about Tuesday to Sunday.

[AndyFoxy]

On 5/20/2021 at 9:59 AM, Susco said:

 

 

Hong Kong is by the way is degenerating quickly lately.

How so?

[mjnaus]

5 hours ago, ukrules said:

Did anyone buy the dip? It's going to be interesting to see the price action between about Tuesday to Sunday.

Buying the dip would mean that prices are stabilizing or, God forbid, go back up. So far, that does not seem to be case just yet. One can hope though.... 

 

All kidding aside, selling the peaks and buying the dips is a fools errand. Especially in an ultra volatile, unregulated market as crypto where tweets from certain people can send prices upwards or downwards. During a bull run, everyone is a genius and everyone is right all the time. When things turn messy like they have the past few weeks, continuing that game convincing yourself you can actually time the market is just going to increase the pain. CDA'ing the way to go. I am off to pick me up some ETH ????

[The Cipher]

5 hours ago, ukrules said:

Did anyone buy the dip? It's going to be interesting to see the price action between about Tuesday to Sunday.

 

I bought during and after the initial crash but not the aftershock dips. Haven't sold anything.

[Surelynot]

4 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

selling the peaks and buying the dips is a fools errand

Not quite as bad as buying the peaks and selling the dips.......I should know.

[mjnaus]

3 hours ago, Surelynot said:

Not quite as bad as buying the peaks and selling the dips.......I should know.

 

Excellent point! One presented with the option; buying the dips and selling the peaks would indeed be preferable.

[Surelynot]

Just now, mjnaus said:

 

Excellent point! One presented with the option; buying the dips and selling the peaks would indeed be preferable.

If all these graphs were turned upside down I would be a millionaire.

[chicowoodduck]

Anti Fanboy and for good reason....love my $$$$in my pocket and under my control.....????????????????????????

[1FinickyOne]

On 5/14/2021 at 12:59 PM, The Cipher said:

Central Banks like those in China and the UK are working on creating their own digital currencies.

This is what puzzles me.. I struggle to see the value of bitcoin [as opposed to a credit card or cash even] and sort of view it as a couple of guys saying, lets make our own money, it is not visible or tangible, we'll just say it exists [lets make it rare!! limited quantities ] - - and the 'mining' being a big energy suck - and for what? 

 

Why can't GS or Citi or any government issue their own crypto? I guess I don't get what is backing it? 

 

That said, I bought some gbtc which I didn't make any $$ on, as the discount to btc..kept increasing... but I did well with ethe and sold out but for my profit and then sold that too... 

 

But, my larger question is who started this and why can't it easily be copied? 

 

ps - I am a relatively long term traditional investor... 

 

pps - I have a friend who made the packaging and put in an instruction manual for "Air Guitars" which he sold in novelty stores.. he didn't do too well with it... but the similarities to bitcoin do not pass me by... 

 

If one morning there was no more bitcoin, who would you call to get your $$ back from or complain? Is there even an office or a mint? 

[1FinickyOne]

19 hours ago, Surelynot said:

If all these graphs were turned upside down I would be a millionaire.

but you might have to learn to walk standing on your head.

[1FinickyOne]

22 hours ago, Surelynot said:

Not quite as bad as buying the peaks and selling the dips.......I should know.

This is the inevitable and most human reaction to market timing.. you feel good when the market is strong and so you buy - when it goes down you get scared and try and duck the punch and sell... 

[1FinickyOne]

On 5/24/2021 at 1:48 AM, cobra said:

we're not dead yet but we can see it from here

swing low, sweet chariot... 

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:44 PM, ukrules said:

 

What happens on the last Friday of each month?

That's when most of the teachers in Thailand get paid. And in my previous schools, that's when a good portion of the farang teachers' salary went into crypto, or so they said. That and their GFs.