Official cryptocurrency thread (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Altcoin)

[Pokerpops]

If you view NFTs in a similar way to a piece of art, I think that is a fair comparison and makes a bit more sense. In my opinion, art really doesn't have much benefit to society apart from people think it looks nice, or maybe even beautiful. It certainly isn't worth the amount that a lot of people pay for it.There are a lot of NFTs being created by artists, they are then selling them on forums on OpenSea and making a living.

Some of the NFTs are actually really creative. Even some of the avatar type things are quite fun. A game like Sorare is fun because it is fantasy football.

But yes a majority of NFTs are absolute shite just jumping on the bandwagon. But in my opinion, a majority of art is also absolute shite, so there we go. A lot of NFTs are just digital art.

Something like a cryptopunk is now basically like a digital asset. Compare it to a diamond for example in my opinion.

What is the benefit of art apart from enriching the original creators? Same thing really. But nobody says art is dangerous when you go and overpay for some crappy painting.
/
The whole concept of collectability is an interesting one isn't it? It is like what do rich people do with their surplus income? Do they donate it to charity or do something useful with it, or do they spend it 'collecting' some random thing and then just storing it in their house and occasionally looking at it.

Conclusion. I think NFTs are stupid. I also think art is stupid.

Crypto itself though is not stupid.

Seems to me that NFT is just crypto with a smiley attached. So,

What is crypto if it’s not just an NFT that doesn’t have any claim to artistic merit?

[bergeroo]

If you view NFTs in a similar way to a piece of art, I think that is a fair comparison and makes a bit more sense. In my opinion, art really doesn't have much benefit to society apart from people think it looks nice, or maybe even beautiful. It certainly isn't worth the amount that a lot of people pay for it.There are a lot of NFTs being created by artists, they are then selling them on forums on OpenSea and making a living.

Some of the NFTs are actually really creative. Even some of the avatar type things are quite fun. A game like Sorare is fun because it is fantasy football.

But yes a majority of NFTs are absolute shite just jumping on the bandwagon. But in my opinion, a majority of art is also absolute shite, so there we go. A lot of NFTs are just digital art.

Something like a cryptopunk is now basically like a digital asset. Compare it to a diamond for example in my opinion.

What is the benefit of art apart from enriching the original creators? Same thing really. But nobody says art is dangerous when you go and overpay for some crappy painting.
/
The whole concept of collectability is an interesting one isn't it? It is like what do rich people do with their surplus income? Do they donate it to charity or do something useful with it, or do they spend it 'collecting' some random thing and then just storing it in their house and occasionally looking at it.

Conclusion. I think NFTs are stupid. I also think art is stupid.

Crypto itself though is not stupid.

Is Soare just like fooptball index?

The game is different. A key point is the scarcity of the cards and there can only ever be a certain amount of each type.

 It is a bit like fantasy football or DFS but you pay all of your entry fees up front.

I'd say it has more legitimacy than Football Index in terms of the investors behind the project such as Softbank and other venture capital firms (Disclaimer - I never played Football Index). I like the team who run it but it could certainly go tits up like any Cyrpto project. I wouldn't recommend anyone invest in it off the street, BUT if you are going to invest in some kind of crypto project then this is one of the more robust ones and you can make an income each week and slowly get your investment back. It is also a bit of a hedge against the volitility of Ethereum. So if you have a bunch of ETH, you could put a bit of it into the game and get some cards.

[bergeroo]

If you view NFTs in a similar way to a piece of art, I think that is a fair comparison and makes a bit more sense. In my opinion, art really doesn't have much benefit to society apart from people think it looks nice, or maybe even beautiful. It certainly isn't worth the amount that a lot of people pay for it.There are a lot of NFTs being created by artists, they are then selling them on forums on OpenSea and making a living.

Some of the NFTs are actually really creative. Even some of the avatar type things are quite fun. A game like Sorare is fun because it is fantasy football.

But yes a majority of NFTs are absolute shite just jumping on the bandwagon. But in my opinion, a majority of art is also absolute shite, so there we go. A lot of NFTs are just digital art.

Something like a cryptopunk is now basically like a digital asset. Compare it to a diamond for example in my opinion.

What is the benefit of art apart from enriching the original creators? Same thing really. But nobody says art is dangerous when you go and overpay for some crappy painting.
/
The whole concept of collectability is an interesting one isn't it? It is like what do rich people do with their surplus income? Do they donate it to charity or do something useful with it, or do they spend it 'collecting' some random thing and then just storing it in their house and occasionally looking at it.

Conclusion. I think NFTs are stupid. I also think art is stupid.

Crypto itself though is not stupid.

Seems to me that NFT is just crypto with a smiley attached. So,

What is crypto if it’s not just an NFT that doesn’t have any claim to artistic merit?

If you aren't convinced by crypto yet, then I am not sure I am going to manage to do it right now in this thread!

I am by no means and evangelist but I hate being screwed over by banks, I hate exchanging currency and being vigged by currency exchange firms and also by banks. It is a de-centralised form of money that you can use all around the world and you can have varying degrees of anonymity depending on which coin you use and fees can also be very low. In the neighbourhood where I live in Berlin there are quite a few places you can pay with crypto.

One only needs to look at the likes of Visa and Mastercard and how they can just ban people on a whim or bowing to religious zealots for example to think that having a decentralised alternative with nobody controlling it is needed. Have a read about Exodus Cry. What I would consider an extreme religious group who puts pressure on Visa and MasterCard to ban certain groups of people from using their services and as these two companies are a semi-monopoly

Just one take on crypto. There are many more avenues and uses, I am not an expert or super knowledgeable or anything.

[bergeroo]

duplicate post

[RickBFA]

I find the whole crypto world rather baffling (perhaps I’m just getting old and I’m a bit ignorant).

Couldn’t central banks launch their own crypto currencies and kill the market ?

I know people buying crypto like it because it is not part of the traditional establishment but a central bank back crypto currency would at least carry some substance/security behind it ?

Crypto seems to be built purely on punters trust, that seems like a dangerous concept in theory.

I have friends who take small punts and try to get in at seed level on new issues hoping one becomes popular and takes off. This really does look like a pure speculative tool where some people further up the purchase time line are going to get badly burnt financially.

Perhaps I am just misunderstanding those new launches of coins but they really do look like ponzi schemes.

[Jon MW]

I find the whole crypto world rather baffling (perhaps I’m just getting old and I’m a bit ignorant).

Couldn’t central banks launch their own crypto currencies and kill the market ?
..

They could - and they would - if it was worth it

The market cap for all cryptocurrencies has doubled to nearly 2 trillion dollars from 2020 to 2021

The liquidity of the "normal" currency market is about 40 trillion dollars

I'd guess over 99% of the people buying cryptocurrency are just buying it as a speculative instrument so the actual demand for it is a fraction of that.

EDIT: if it wasn't clear part of my point was that if a central bank launched a stable cryptocurrency - very few people would buy it, because nearly all of them are buying it for speculation. And if the central banks launched a cryptocurrency which wasn't stable - then what would be the point? Central banks aren't concerned with just creating speculative financial instruments.

[RED-DOG]

If you view NFTs in a similar way to a piece of art, I think that is a fair comparison and makes a bit more sense. In my opinion, art really doesn't have much benefit to society apart from people think it looks nice, or maybe even beautiful. It certainly isn't worth the amount that a lot of people pay for it.There are a lot of NFTs being created by artists, they are then selling them on forums on OpenSea and making a living.

Some of the NFTs are actually really creative. Even some of the avatar type things are quite fun. A game like Sorare is fun because it is fantasy football.

But yes a majority of NFTs are absolute shite just jumping on the bandwagon. But in my opinion, a majority of art is also absolute shite, so there we go. A lot of NFTs are just digital art.

Something like a cryptopunk is now basically like a digital asset. Compare it to a diamond for example in my opinion.

What is the benefit of art apart from enriching the original creators? Same thing really. But nobody says art is dangerous when you go and overpay for some crappy painting.
/
The whole concept of collectability is an interesting one isn't it? It is like what do rich people do with their surplus income? Do they donate it to charity or do something useful with it, or do they spend it 'collecting' some random thing and then just storing it in their house and occasionally looking at it.

Conclusion. I think NFTs are stupid. I also think art is stupid.

Crypto itself though is not stupid.

I love this response, so many great points well made.

[RED-DOG]

PS- That doesn't mean I agree with them all.

[bergeroo]

Great timing in answer to the question what is crypto and what is it for?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9XAxNRXLvQ&t=807s

Two hour podcast with Haralabos Voulgaris talking about why he likes crypto. Some fun gambling stories thrown in there too. For those that don't know him. He is/was a big sports bettor. Also a poker player. The last few years he worked as a coach for an NBA team.

In the early days he got paid a lot of his gambling winnings in crypto, especially from Chinese people and it was so easy compared to in FIAT and how much would get vigged by financial institutions. He is quite suspicious of NFTs, though he has quite a few.

He really likes cryptopunks. He thinks some of the cachet of them comes from the story of how they were made and given away. Some with Bitcoin, it was made with an ideology, so this gives it value compared to the other coins. I didn't really think of that one but it is a good point.

He also talks about the influence of the US Central bank and other national banks and how that is bad and dangerous for people. And it is good to have an alternative type of money that doesn't have that which you can choose to use/hold if you like.

To RickBFA, I would say that Bitcoin is bluechip at this point. It is very trustworthy. Large financial institutions are getting involved and holding it. It is very solid just because of how it is created and the fact that nobody controls it.

[RickBFA]

I find the whole crypto world rather baffling (perhaps I’m just getting old and I’m a bit ignorant).

Couldn’t central banks launch their own crypto currencies and kill the market ?
..

They could - and they would - if it was worth it

The market cap for all cryptocurrencies has doubled to nearly 2 trillion dollars from 2020 to 2021

The liquidity of the "normal" currency market is about 40 trillion dollars

I'd guess over 99% of the people buying cryptocurrency are just buying it as a speculative instrument so the actual demand for it is a fraction of that.

EDIT: if it wasn't clear part of my point was that if a central bank launched a stable cryptocurrency - very few people would buy it, because nearly all of them are buying it for speculation. And if the central banks launched a cryptocurrency which wasn't stable - then what would be the point? Central banks aren't concerned with just creating speculative financial instruments.

That makes a lot of sense.

It seems to me that almost everyone buys crypto as a pure speculatory “investment” even though it’s instrinsic value is built on sand.

And of course, crypto has been a favoured financial facility for large scale criminal activity.

I might be missing something but the use of crypto as a currency for of payment for goods and services is almost non existence in 99.999% of transactions.

It feels more honest to say, its just a speculative punt for almost everyone who buys it.

[Pokerpops]

I find the whole crypto world rather baffling (perhaps I’m just getting old and I’m a bit ignorant).

Couldn’t central banks launch their own crypto currencies and kill the market ?
..

They could - and they would - if it was worth it

The market cap for all cryptocurrencies has doubled to nearly 2 trillion dollars from 2020 to 2021

The liquidity of the "normal" currency market is about 40 trillion dollars

I'd guess over 99% of the people buying cryptocurrency are just buying it as a speculative instrument so the actual demand for it is a fraction of that.

EDIT: if it wasn't clear part of my point was that if a central bank launched a stable cryptocurrency - very few people would buy it, because nearly all of them are buying it for speculation. And if the central banks launched a cryptocurrency which wasn't stable - then what would be the point? Central banks aren't concerned with just creating speculative financial instruments.

That makes a lot of sense.

It seems to me that almost everyone buys crypto as a pure speculatory “investment” even though it’s instrinsic value is built on sand.

And of course, crypto has been a favoured financial facility for large scale criminal activity.

I might be missing something but the use of crypto as a currency for of payment for goods and services is almost non existence in 99.999% of transactions.

It feels more honest to say, its just a speculative punt for almost everyone who buys it.

Rick knows.
Although I suspect that his .001% might be on the high side. Certainly for legitimate transactions.

[Doobs]

I find the whole crypto world rather baffling (perhaps I’m just getting old and I’m a bit ignorant).

Couldn’t central banks launch their own crypto currencies and kill the market ?
..

They could - and they would - if it was worth it

The market cap for all cryptocurrencies has doubled to nearly 2 trillion dollars from 2020 to 2021

The liquidity of the "normal" currency market is about 40 trillion dollars

I'd guess over 99% of the people buying cryptocurrency are just buying it as a speculative instrument so the actual demand for it is a fraction of that.

EDIT: if it wasn't clear part of my point was that if a central bank launched a stable cryptocurrency - very few people would buy it, because nearly all of them are buying it for speculation. And if the central banks launched a cryptocurrency which wasn't stable - then what would be the point? Central banks aren't concerned with just creating speculative financial instruments.

That makes a lot of sense.

It seems to me that almost everyone buys crypto as a pure speculatory “investment” even though it’s instrinsic value is built on sand.

And of course, crypto has been a favoured financial facility for large scale criminal activity.

I might be missing something but the use of crypto as a currency for of payment for goods and services is almost non existence in 99.999% of transactions.

It feels more honest to say, its just a speculative punt for almost everyone who buys it.

Rick knows.
Although I suspect that his .001% might be on the high side. Certainly for legitimate transactions.

I know it has been used for big transactions across borders.  I don't know how you'd define legitimate, as things like gambling are viewed differently in different jurisdictions, but a high proportion won't be on any definition.  And how to you judge how much is laundering and the like without knowing either side of a trade?

I think to reach a stage where bitcoin etc. has shown to be worth its valuation then legitimate transactions for trade or similar must be a much higher proportion of all transactions.  Gawd knows how you'd ever judge that with so many unknown participants.

[bergeroo]

Pokerpops and RickBFA - have either of you heard about this thing. It is coming soon. It is inevitable. It is called..... THE FUTURE.

At some point nobody had debit and credit cards and now everyone does. At some point nobody had internet banking and the internet didn't even exist. There was even a time before computers! Things change. If you get in and use something early you can even get extra benefits for being ahead of the curve.

For the average British bloke with a steady job, a mortgage, good credit rating and a bank account then yeah, probably you don't ever need to use crypto. That's true. The financial system in the UK is working and regulated and relatively ok. Gambling is completely legal and tax free.

 But everyone in the world isn't the same as that. Some people can't get a debit card, or a Paypal account. Some people live in countries where they can't trust banks, or their national currency is a joke. Some people live in America and want to play online poker but it is illegal and has been for 10 years. Some people want to send money quickly and efficiently over borders in a matter of hours for reasonable fees, rather than waiting weeks and and/or getting gouged on fees by someone like Western Union or their bank. Just open up your imagination a bit and think about all the ways that cryptocurrency could be useful if your circumstances were different.

And the argument that crypto is used to fuel illicit transactions always makes me laugh. How many times in history have there been drug deals or arms deals paid for with bags full of money. Police find a stash of drugs and a stack of cash. At no point does anyone ever say, we shouldn't use US$ as it is fuelling illegal transactions. Ban dollars!

It is a currency it has value, you can use it to buy things. Bitcoin and other cryptos are also a currency. So you can use it to buy pizza, a beer or also drugs and guns. The same as you can use pounds or dollars. If the buyer and the seller both want to do a transaction in crypto then it is just as viable as in pounds and often more convenient. If you want to change pounds to dollars, you can shop around but you are going to lose a few % everytime you change it. Perhaps not a big deal for a few trips to the Rhino in Vegas, but if you are a business then this kind of thing adds up.

I wonder what the line is on the time you can use Bitcoin to pay for your weekly Asda grocery shop? I don't think it will be long to be honest.

Yes many cryptos are crap, but many FIAT currencies are also shaky. How many FIAT currencies would you be comfortable in holding for a long period of time or investing in? Probably not too many. Yet there are over 100 currencies around the world. Same for crypto, there are some good ones and some bad ones. I'd rather store my wealth in bitcoin than in 80 or 90% of FIAT currencies in the world. So no wonder people might prefer to use it than the Tanzanian Shilling.

[nirvana]

Pokerpops and RickBFA - have either of you heard about this thing. It is coming soon. It is inevitable. It is called..... THE FUTURE.

At some point nobody had debit and credit cards and now everyone does. At some point nobody had internet banking and the internet didn't even exist. There was even a time before computers! Things change. If you get in and use something early you can even get extra benefits for being ahead of the curve.

For the average British bloke with a steady job, a mortgage, good credit rating and a bank account then yeah, probably you don't ever need to use crypto. That's true. The financial system in the UK is working and regulated and relatively ok. Gambling is completely legal and tax free.

 But everyone in the world isn't the same as that. Some people can't get a debit card, or a Paypal account. Some people live in countries where they can't trust banks, or their national currency is a joke. Some people live in America and want to play online poker but it is illegal and has been for 10 years. Some people want to send money quickly and efficiently over borders in a matter of hours for reasonable fees, rather than waiting weeks and and/or getting gouged on fees by someone like Western Union or their bank. Just open up your imagination a bit and think about all the ways that cryptocurrency could be useful if your circumstances were different.

And the argument that crypto is used to fuel illicit transactions always makes me laugh. How many times in history have there been drug deals or arms deals paid for with bags full of money. Police find a stash of drugs and a stack of cash. At no point does anyone ever say, we shouldn't use US$ as it is fuelling illegal transactions. Ban dollars!

It is a currency it has value, you can use it to buy things. Bitcoin and other cryptos are also a currency. So you can use it to buy pizza, a beer or also drugs and guns. The same as you can use pounds or dollars. If the buyer and the seller both want to do a transaction in crypto then it is just as viable as in pounds and often more convenient. If you want to change pounds to dollars, you can shop around but you are going to lose a few % everytime you change it. Perhaps not a big deal for a few trips to the Rhino in Vegas, but if you are a business then this kind of thing adds up.

I wonder what the line is on the time you can use Bitcoin to pay for your weekly Asda grocery shop? I don't think it will be long to be honest.

Yes many cryptos are crap, but many FIAT currencies are also shaky. How many FIAT currencies would you be comfortable in holding for a long period of time or investing in? Probably not too many. Yet there are over 100 currencies around the world. Same for crypto, there are some good ones and some bad ones. I'd rather store my wealth in bitcoin than in 80 or 90% of FIAT currencies in the world. So no wonder people might prefer to use it than the Tanzanian Shilling.

Interesting post this and some good points on crypto used for illicit stuff being kind of a non factor, anyway thanks.

I get some of it but do struggle with the intrinsic value aspect versus say a promise from the Fed or the B of E.

One thing I'm certain of though, I wish I'd shelved all my cynicism and fear of getting burned and invested small and regular loseable amounts in btc !

[The Camel]

If you view NFTs in a similar way to a piece of art, I think that is a fair comparison and makes a bit more sense. In my opinion, art really doesn't have much benefit to society apart from people think it looks nice, or maybe even beautiful. It certainly isn't worth the amount that a lot of people pay for it.There are a lot of NFTs being created by artists, they are then selling them on forums on OpenSea and making a living.

Some of the NFTs are actually really creative. Even some of the avatar type things are quite fun. A game like Sorare is fun because it is fantasy football.

But yes a majority of NFTs are absolute shite just jumping on the bandwagon. But in my opinion, a majority of art is also absolute shite, so there we go. A lot of NFTs are just digital art.

Something like a cryptopunk is now basically like a digital asset. Compare it to a diamond for example in my opinion.

What is the benefit of art apart from enriching the original creators? Same thing really. But nobody says art is dangerous when you go and overpay for some crappy painting.
/
The whole concept of collectability is an interesting one isn't it? It is like what do rich people do with their surplus income? Do they donate it to charity or do something useful with it, or do they spend it 'collecting' some random thing and then just storing it in their house and occasionally looking at it.

Conclusion. I think NFTs are stupid. I also think art is stupid.

Crypto itself though is not stupid.

I love this response, so many great points well made.

It's what I've loved about blondepoker over the years. Smarts people making great arguments, whether I agree or disagree with them.

Just a shamethat a couple of twats always tried to ruin it for no discernable reason other their own trolling pleasure.