Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies

[Starjumper]

By the way, I don't want to get rich and be a millionaire, never did.  What I'm doing this for is to be able to get my car fixed and license it and to build some guest cabins.  If there is more I will donate it to certain charities that are trying to preserve the Amazon.

[Starjumper]

On 1/13/2018 at 6:49 PM, rainbowvein said:

You will read on on messageboards from those who made money early on in crypto, how empty some feel. Even though they are now wealthy.

 

They already were empty, they just didn't know it yet.  They always will be empty too.

[Owledge]

Well, you might actually be lucky in a way, pushed along by incentivizing pressures. Nothing worse than sitting between all chairs and no wind blowing, too few resources to really live, too many to die, and no hope left.

As I explained, supporting a system with participation is one thing, and money flowing to one person can create a vacuum among others, but if money can be drawn from bad uses to good uses, maybe it can overall have a positive outcome. But that's very hard to judge. (Personally I feel kinda useless but could massively flourish in many ways beneficial to everybody if I had my own place so I am no longer subject to energies that keep me from moving towards that.) And there are already opportunists jumping on dynamics/ideas like that - like the one related to "effective altruism" where people who want to help make a better world are advised to go into career paths in investment banking, hedge funds and stock market - with the idea "It yields more money faster, which is better for good projects." It's a frickin' travesty, a classical theater of folly. That's exactly where I cringe and what I talked about in my previous post. It's so damn obvious what's wrong with that picture. (Naturally that endeavor emerged in the USA, as a profit-oriented business.)

Even good-spirited, hope-instilling projects with a strong, trustworthy leadership I have witnessed gradually eroding over time because their grand vision required so much money. The Devil loves to provide 'opportunities' for those.

[Owledge]

I watched the linked video now and the guy's body language makes me cringe all the time. He's definitely a salesman and not a thinker.

Now, I don't have the energy to dig into all the details how that gold backing is supposed to work and whether one really needs any backing with a crypto currency, because arguably the backing is just to give it tangible value, not to secure it. In any case I would assume the currency is run to be mathematically based on the 900 million figure in some way, and it's kind of common sense awareness and shown by the past, too, that the estimated value of a gold mine is a wonderful tool for fraud. Someone who is in the position of owning  a gold mine and then wants to sell would pull all strings to boost the estimates. And the only buyer not interested in that risk is either someone naive or someone who knows the value doesn't have to be authentic for what they intend to do with it.

It is for the same reasons that gold papers (which this basically is related to) are much less safe than physical ownership of gold. Because the scam that is the conventional monetary system can also be applied to gold. Some years ago the German government wanted to withdraw all its gold from Fort Knox and the result was heavy stalling. Fort Knox is supposed to be a physical gold storage, that's its one job. Yet apparently they didn't actually have the German government's gold there, so they scammed them with the same fractional reserve crap as we know from conventional money. They probably take good money for the safeguarding service and then they make extra profit by using someone else's property.

 

Funny thing is, for me something like this could be considered a lifesaver, too, and I, too, would want to get my car running and maintained, but for that it has to be trustworthy, not another upfront investment into something that smells fishy. I have made investments in things that looked much less suspicious and still learned some hard lessons.

 

It is sad when I read Youtube comments on the video like "Finally I am in something from the beginning". LOL, no, this is crypto currency; it's not the beginning. It's just another bandwagon.

 

I wish I had jumped on the Bitcoin thing in the very beginning, but that is me, now. Back then I still had other hopes. And one cannot see into the future. If I could, it would have been a safe thing, especially considering one could mine the coin, and quite easily back then.

 

What I'm looking for is a sponsor for having my own place, because that would make my potential explode. But who wants to invest in human potential?

Edited May 22, 2018 by Owledge

[Aetherous]

3 hours ago, Owledge said:

LOL, no, this is crypto currency; it's not the beginning.

 

In a certain sense, it still is the beginning. It's still the wild west in many ways.

Will people who buy BTC become millionaires in a decade? Maybe not. But historically, big jumps in value have occurred that could make this happen.

People who criticize on the sidelines will get nothing. They might avoid some losses, though.

[cosmic4z]

On 13/01/2018 at 6:52 AM, futuredaze said:

You will get people saying "Cryptos are in a bubble" which might be true to some extent, but I think long-term we are still in a very early stage and investing in practical coins could be a smart move. Still, more than just making money, I really am interested in the practical use of many of these coins.  It is a very exciting time, almost like the early stages of internet.

 

You have to wonder how informed and knowledgeable of the space these naysayers actually are? The cynic in me would suspect they don't understand it, so don't want to see it take off while they're still invested in fiat, and so they talk it down. They could be right of course, crypto could well turn to do dar, but I don't believe it will ... and hopefully my opinion isn't swayed by a positive bias because I'm invested...

 

There are powerful forces who have a vested interest in restricting crypto, but the overall concept of decentralisation is an enormously useful and attractive one, and in one way (form) or another, I think humanity will move more and more to a decentralised paradigm.

[Owledge]

33 minutes ago, cosmic4z said:

 

You have to wonder how informed and knowledgeable of the space these naysayers actually are? The cynic in me would suspect they don't understand it, so don't want to see it take off while they're still invested in fiat, and so they talk it down. They could be right of course, crypto could well turn to do dar, but I don't believe it will ... and hopefully my opinion isn't swayed by a positive bias because I'm invested...

 

There are powerful forces who have a vested interest in restricting crypto, but the overall concept of decentralisation is an enormously useful and attractive one, and in one way (form) or another, I think humanity will move more and more to a decentralised paradigm.

How informed are you if you call crypto currency not fiat? Most seem to be. They're only backed by the trust in their usefulness and based on the effort that went into creating and maintaining the system. That's pretty much what we refer to as the fiat currency monetary scam / pyramid scheme. There's also a discussion of the aspect of centralized power that still exist, maybe by the creator, maybe by few holders of much of the currency.

Also, currency has to be useful and accepted. It might sounds nice that KaratGold Coin is allegedly gold-backed, but if you turn one cent investment into ten cent investment and no one wants to actually use it (except for speculation), then it will fail, meaning your investment was for naught. Or you managed to exploit some poor suckers who are not good at playing that game. If your profits are someone else's losses, you are still in a spiritual trap, caught in a system of scarcity, competition, fear. Those root factors will shape everything that springs from them. You will simply exert energy for coming up with new and fancy, 'smarter' systems for dealing with that problem, not for transcending it.

 

Of course cryptos are a step in a good direction. I just want to remind people to also look at the 'old-world' things that are growing on that soil, too. I would compare it to the hype around Elon Musk that easily makes people forget about how much he is buying into existing structures for his success, and how for example the electric cars business also has a dark side. (Elon Musk might very well be fueling US-imperialist war and its ensuing human suffering. And judging by some things I have seen from him, he has some shockingly naive blind spots. I expect better than a high school level powerpoint presentation. - But he himself doesn't even pretend to be the genius that people want to see him as. He said he got lucky with how he started in life.)

The wicked don't rest, so to speak. If we grow too complacent with our latest wonder toy, it's gonna be corrupted before someone started working on the next step.

So to pinpoint one dark side of cryptos: It is currency. Meaning, all those 'progressive visionaries' still only get very excited about money.

And I have learned from observation and experience that the good can be the worst enemy of the better.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Owledge

[cosmic4z]

Naturally, as with all things there is good and bad with crypto. Plenty of people out there manipulating the system, and profiting at the expense of others. How does one not get had?...

 

Noticed a comment earlier about not keeping cyrpto on an exchange, rather to use a USB drive. Not sure if others are aware, but a good secure way to store your keys is in a Ledger Nano S wallet (other hardware wallets are available). If you want to check it out, here: https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s

Edited May 24, 2018 by cosmic4z

[thelerner]

Imo the best way to protect yourself with any highly volatile investment is

A. Don't risk more then you can afford to lose, or halve.  The ability to sleep at night without overly worrying is extremely important.  Ask if you could if the asset drops down to its 52 week low? 

 

B. Divide investment by 3.  Sell 1/3 after 20 or 30% rise (note you can set up a sell order in advance, let the price come to you). another third at 50 or 60%, let the rest ride.  Or til that last third can buy you something that will brighten your life long term.  Cause life is not about the money, its about living it well.

 

 

What is XF345XY457281 worth?  I don't know..  Maybe 16k, maybe 8k, maybe $14.50..  perhaps the price of the ink it wasn't written with.  Because bitcoin type 'currency' is not being used as it was intended, ie as counter currency and instead valued as a speculative instrument, the Greater fool theory is in affect, ie its worth as much as the last guy is willing to spend. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by thelerner

[johndoe2012]

.

Edited June 10, 2018 by johndoe2012

[Owledge]

1 hour ago, johndoe2012 said:

http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2014/12/31/Stable-Crypto-Currencies-are-Impossible/

 

A link about the idea of stable currencies. 

 

No currencies are stable but they just seem stable compared to bitcoin. 

 

I went in just before the craze started last year and made back what I lost in another investment so net result zero :-) the rest I am holding as a lottery ticket if btc ever becomes pricey again. 

 

I was obsessed for some time about getting rich due to btc but now things changed for me and btc feels like the same old in new clothes. 

 

Though there are some engineers like Dan Larimer, from the article above, who genuinely are in it for creating a better world. 

 

The idea of a global currency is fine but more tech takes us away from nature and makes us more reliant on computers and a complicated, industrial society. 

 

The question is if crypto currencies are necessary for the big changes that need to happen: a drastically lower consumption and a lower carbon foot print? 

You, too, are still somewhat stuck in the scarcity mindset though. Other side of the same coin. Capitalism grooms its controlled opposition.

[johndoe2012]

4 hours ago, Owledge said:

You, too, are still somewhat stuck in the scarcity mindset though. Other side of the same coin. Capitalism grooms its controlled opposition.

 

A more intelligent person would have pointed out exactly where this scarcity mindset was found in the quoted text.

 

But a dimwit such as yourself would of course choose not to.

[Starjumper]

On 5/22/2018 at 5:01 AM, Owledge said:

I watched the linked video now and the guy's body language makes me cringe all the time. He's definitely a salesman and not a thinker.

 

Well what the fark do you expect?  Of course he's a salesman, and has gotten rich by being a salesman, and the ones who get richest are the ones who provide a worthwhile service to others.  DUH!

 

He created paper money with gold woven into it so it has real value, he created cryptocoins that is already backed by gold and will be backed at $5 each by mid 2020, and I got them at one cent each.  The only thing that can kill crypto is an EMP or some government disabling the internet, both of which seem unlikely in the short term.

 

So let's do some simple math, ok wiz?  I got $400 of coins for one cent each, and I got a bonus for early buy in so I have 64,000 coins.  When they are backed by the $5 gold then they're sellable for at least $5 each assuming no other increase.  Thats an increase of 500 times.  So, 64,000 X 500 = $320,000.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

The one cent sale may still be going on, contact me via PM if interested.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Starjumper

[Owledge]

7 hours ago, Starjumper said:

Of course he's a salesman, and has gotten rich by being a salesman, and the ones who get richest are the ones who provide a worthwhile service to others.  DUH!

Oh boy.

[silent thunder]

what is money but a shared notion of value?

 

what has real value?  for me... contentment, presence, clean water and food and a safe place to rest.

 

paper money, shiny gold, sparkly gems in and of themselves are valueless... aside from the shared idea taht they are valuable.  

 

I can't eat, drink or heal with money.  yet because of the shared idea of the value of money, I may exchange money (worthless paper, shiny rocks, or mere numbers in a computer banking account) for food, water and medicine which has actual impacting value on the conditions of my life experience.

 

any more, money equals options to me... find yourself in a toxic situation and have some money?  you have the option to get the hell out of there.  no money?  you can still get out of there (we are not rooted trees), but with much less ease

 

the dollar is steadily slipping in its shared value, but still carries value (in large part because america has 11 aircraft carriers stationed around the globe while the rest of the world combined has 9), because the rest of the world agrees to the idea.

 

federal reserve bank makes america's paper money.  they lend it to our government @ interest.  the banks that use that currency loan it out @ interest as well and the result is a system where the debt owed to the system that creates the money always exceeds the currency in flow at any given moment within that system.

 

all currency seems like a shell game to me at its core... like the notion of owning land.  i don't even have the sense of owning my own body, let alone the land lol, or money...

 

yet as pervasive as it is... it's the only game in town aside from wandering.

is bitcoin more valuable than the yen, pound, or dollar? 

it is if we all agree it is and for as long as we all agree that...

 

 

and of course.. now my mind is echoing Tolkien's words  "not all those who wander are lost"

time to shut this thing down and wander

 

thanks for the keen topic and insight fellow bums... i'm always grateful.

 

 

 

[Owledge]

@silent thunder

Seeing without deception can lead to eureka moments and a laugh not just in spirituality. The worldwide vastly dominant monetary system is actually the epitome of what is commonly despised to the point of being illegal except that 'top-level' system itself: a confidence trick and a pyramid scheme. In principle it IS illegal, but anyone who studied U.S. foreign policy a bit knows what in Germany we call "Illegal? Egal." (Illegal? Doesn't matter.)

An immoral worldwide enslavement system 'runs the world'. And as much as I want to secure some basic needs for myself, the purpose for that is to nourish my self-respect, but making those compromises undermines it. And that's a common trick the system plays: It makes you grab for something and the only way to get a hold of it is via the means the system provides, which are stealing from you. You lose high frequency energy and get low frequency energy, and those with only superficial perception, probably learned as a means of pain avoidance, will lose the ability to see the difference.

In fact, that smartass wannabe-wise-spiritual-teacher saying about how when you finally get something you realize you're not satisfied, that is only based on such structures, only because you usually have to sell your soul if you really want something. But that's not a law of nature. That's a result of fear-dominant society.

The more you get without having to fight for it, the less you will want for. It's all just fear vs. love at the root. The deeper fear sinks in over time, the more someone will become an agent of it. Like when the power-hungry elite have such a lack of love that they suppressed the knowledge of what love feels like and are then trapped trying to replace the void with something inferior that never can, because when you do not know love anymore, everything you do breeds fear.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by Owledge

[thelerner]

On 12/30/2009 at 6:28 PM, thelerner said:

 

 

Ode to money; the lubricant of barter, the measuring stick of perceived value. We create it, name it & play with it. A useful idea, worthy servant and poor master. It Is because we think it Is. And if you don't, I have a nice P.O Box in Brooklyn for you to send it to.

 

Even Einstein had problems with money. In 1904 working as a patent clerk he met my great great uncle, Manny the accountant who explained it to him. Using language Einstein would understand Manny wrote this:

M = E C^2. Which translates into Money equals Energy times Consumption Now and Future.

 

You see how energy is at the heart of money? And what is energy? The potential for work. In humans terms Energy makes our lives better and more enjoyable. Flip the equation and we see E= M/C^2. Present and future consumption divides our M and cuts our Energy.

 

Equations must be balanced and choices made. Still one can break out of the zero sum game through leverage. Creativity, creating new resources or combining old ones in new ways allow more work done with the same effort. This is how the wise tap the source of money.

 

 

Michael

 

[Starjumper]

http://themillermix.com/asias-largest-gold-traders-embracing-karatgold-coin/

 

You know, with stuff like cryptocurrency it's all a popularity contest, and the above article shows something about this.  The initial coin offering at one cent is still going on but will stop at midnight Saturday Germany time, so don't be thtupid, get your Karatgold Coins now. 

 

From me.

[Owledge]

1 hour ago, Starjumper said:

http://themillermix.com/asias-largest-gold-traders-embracing-karatgold-coin/

 

You know, with stuff like cryptocurrency it's all a popularity contest, and the above article shows something about this.  The initial coin offering at one cent is still going on but will stop at midnight Saturday Germany time, so don't be thtupid, get your Karatgold Coins now. 

 

From me.

Are you trying self-parody?

How much do you actually understand about it?

First, the 1-Cent was supposed to end long ago, now it's again only-for-a-short-time ... again.

That blog article is just some random source-less text that throws around the word "gold" and badmouths regular cryptocurrency while itself is using a pyramid marketing scheme (which is very much not a sign of confidence in a product/service but is driven by even more selfish incentive than original cryptos at their speculative bubble phase) and makes predictions about the value rise of the currency. And while it's always gold, gold, gold, they value the currency not in grams, but in dollars, which shows a profound deception in the claimed concept.

So is the currency limited? How are decisions made about how to artificially control its value in relation to the gold-backing? He can only produce a certain amount of gold to back it with, and that's also when the gold is considered to actually be available for backing. As long as it sits in the mine, it's the rabbit in the magician's hat, or Schrödinger's Cat.

Also, since there's only mention of exchangeability for dollars, and this is something that was obvious from the very beginning, there's a misconception about what gold backing and fiat currency really means and entails and a deception of how this is still the old problematic monetary systems. Buy KaratGold Coins and in 2020 tell him you'd now like to exchange them for the gold they are backed with and see what happens. He'll probably not do that, because the gold is his; he paid for it, and its purpose is to not actually be exchanged for the backing. So what value does it really have? Imagine everybody exchanged their coin for the gold it is backed with. Then Seiz would have all the coin and no gold, which will be distributed among many people who might decide to exchange it for dollars. What value would all the coin in Seiz's possession have then?

 

You either share the fruit of the land socially or it's all still based on attaining material wealth through violent acquisition. That is actually what systems with material backing are based on.

 

If it was supposed to be about currency stability, then how come it's 1 cent now and planned to be 500x that in two years? What's the guarantee that it's about to stay stable? Because he wll run it like that? That would basically make him just your typical central banker, giving him influence and control, which in the hands of someone without exceptional idealism is a bad idea and leads to the old problems again.

 

So, this is my chance to help build yet another centralized profit pinata stranglehold? I mean, I know that without some selfishness it's hard to get through life, but with today's knowledge I would have been much more inclined to get involved with Bitcoin. The KaratGold thing I simply don't trust, and I have made enough bad experiences with initial investments. Once "get in early" is advertised on billboards, you're not really getting in early.

Also, I am aware Seiz did the KaratBars thing before that, which is basically him making a killing by letting others work for him in promoting overpriced gold that's not officially accepted for trade, while dressing it in a pretend-altruistic mission for marketing purposes. KaratGold Coin is just that while jumping on the crypto bandwagon. It's double the 'shilling'.

Also, the MLM and affiliate marketing turf is comedic. Everybody is trashing other competing systems in reviews to promote the own one, or trashing people who are trashing other systems to create pretend-credibility and non-bias, while promoting their own system, or warning of scams of MLM while promoting Affiliate etc..

 

It's all still part of the highly spiritually destructive system that harnesses selfishness in a centralized control manner. The very same system ailing humankind.

Heck, even just monetizing my Youtube channel is a hard decision once I read up on everything and considering how GooTube keeps appalling with ever-more ridiculous insanity.

 

P.S.: Seiz is such a successful businessman that his promo videos are utter garbage. (At least the Karatbars one I watched.)

Also, he worked in another gold reselling business (KB Edelmetalle Group) very much like KaratBars before, and his employer (Mike Koschine) got under German fraud investigation and his business was forbidden by Swiss authorities and he moved it to Liechtenstein.

Edited June 14, 2018 by Owledge

[Starjumper]

The one cent initial coin offering has ended, they are all sold out, and unlike bitcoin, they aren't making any more coins.

 

Last night I was surprised to find out that there are 4338 cryptocurrencies available in the world so that makes it seem like the prognosis for any one of them is not so good.  However, those that are backed by some gold do seem like a better deal.

[Aetherous]

38 minutes ago, Starjumper said:

Last night I was surprised to find out that there are 4338 cryptocurrencies available in the world so that makes it seem like the prognosis for any one of them is not so good.

 

Yes, when I was trading between altcoins and BTC, it really seemed like only the top few coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and maybe Litecoin) were legitimate. Everything else was basically just set up as pump and dump coins, from what I could tell watching their charts day to day. I did hear good things about Cardano, apparently the team working on it has some smart people, but didn't really understand it enough to know whether that's not all just hype as well.

[thelerner]

imo what it'll take to win the Alt-coin wars is a low and stable price plus wide acceptance.  Fluctuation and high prices are

the opposite of what you'd want in a alt currency.  You also don't want a common currency to be $1,000 or even $50 a unit.  Being a speculation play is not what Alt-currency is about, and those that are will ultimately not be the top contenders.  If Visa or Mastercard ever accepted any alt-currency as payment, then it'd be a legit coin of the realm.   

 

Acceptance will come from marketing and getting shops and sites to accept it.  That battle ultimately will be more important then price movement.   

 

 

[Starjumper]

Karatgold Coin is going to come out with a debit card so that should help.

[Owledge]

So, half a year has passed and I see Karatgold Coin is indeed doing great so far. Grew 5%, from 1 cent to 1.0161 cent. Surely it's gonna skyrocket to its "guaranteed" 500 cent value shortly before end of 2020, haha. (Is there a hindsight joke hidden in there?)

Just wondering why it's at one cent when that was only the special early-bird intro price (that surprisingly got extended) and others were supposed to get it for a much higher price. They'd be a long way off before leaving the red. Well, the bright red.

 

African gold mines aren't profitable anymore, so people come up with wacky ideas of how to still make use of them.

Ironically, it's the principle of diminishing returns at work, just like with mining of remaining Bitcoin.

Funny what parallels we discover in the area of mining, between physical and virtual.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Owledge

[redcairo]

My best friend bought some ethereum with the barely any money he had. And as a result got to spend an entire year traveling the world, attending a specialized print mentoring in Spain, and doing a ton of stuff he would never have dreamed he could. That was from Ethereum.

 

I own just a tiny bit. At this point I don't pay attention to it since it's not worth anything more than I paid for it but who knows, someday. :-)

 

RC