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 Post subject: Bitcoin, and alt coins.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:52 am 

Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:00 am
Posts: 197
This cryptocurrency has me confused. Best I understand, it is just a figment of someones imagination, produced when an arbitrarily or random moment of computer computation is completed, working on problems that have no purpose nor solution. To me, it is like a bunch of race car drivers with their wheels jacked off the ground, revving their engines to create a lot of smoke, heat and noise, and ever now and then, a referee declares a "virtual coin", which may be shared among the participants, or not. If the make-work is pointless, does the value of the coin remain when everyone gives up the wasted computer time and go get a real job? If something imaginary is "created", does it still "Imaginarily exist" after the "mining" has stopped.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:39 pm 
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I get the sentiment you express. In the most basic of definitions you are correct.
I’ll probably post an intro (a better one) at some point since my point here was; OMG, laptops, for real?

So here’s a basic quickie.
First value. Like any “collectible” the value of a single Bitcoin or Satoshi is what someone is willing to value it at. Much like Fiat currency, say, the USD. There’s no actual backing.
Bitcoin has a ‘base’ value in what it costs to make a single coin. energy, materials, etc. You can parallel this to when you count personal vehicle use for tax purposes.
After the base coin is minted at the base price, it becomes a tradable commodity, like gold. You are trading based on two things, the value of labour to make it, and the ratio of how many exist vs how many can exist.
The more Bitcoin there are the lower the individual cost. However the more there are the harder it is to make another one. And eventually there will be no new ones. Bitcoin is a POW, Proof of Work token. The value of individual transactions is based on the work involved to mint the coin and the mining aspect, two separate related actions.

As for the other aspect, what why? Bitcoin is a POC…proof of concept. Blockchain is a ledgering method. It not what Bitcoin itself can do but what the technology can do.
The forks are created for individual reasons. Be it BC cash not liking the rules or BT gold using a percentile backing of gold. Or BT Diamond with a hardened ledger. Each one of these forks occurs at a specific block point that is permanently encoded. Each fork boosts the concept value Bitcoin, and each successful fork eases the spending value of Bitcoin.

Your final statement is exactly why POS, proof of stake, systems were invented and why they have taken off so well.
Proof of stake is based on venture capitalism. The amount of a coin or token stakes against the value of the chain is how much an individual is willing to loose to back the project. So there’s the value of the work, and the value of locked up previous work. The more people stake into a coin the more the community trusts it. Most POS coins have staking interest. Where like a bank you earn interest based on letting someone else use your money for a while. However POS interest is often much higher than any bank. Decrypt and CoinMarketCap have close reported averages of Apx 3%. Some are as high as 10% and others as low as 0.5%.
My holding coin, Tezos, is over 4%.

ledgering, the real use for cryptocurrency. Transactions are permanently logged. Each log can contain a message or other information. A log can not be changed. Therefore a permanent record is created and can be back checked. This is why the largest banks are moving to internal block chain to record transactions.
Each new transaction starts with the encoded CS (check sum) of the last and creates a new CS at the end of the record. You can not delete any record without throwing out the chain after it. This creates a transparency unmatched in current finance.
If you log a message you can’t delete it. You can’t pretend a transaction didn’t happen. Nothing is secret even though it is generally private from the outside view.
There’s interest in blockchain voting records for this reason. Each choice of Office would be a token. The person clicked would be recorded in the message. This works on the minting aspect. A mined coin is still dormant till it’s out on the chain. In the dormant state you can add a message.
Using the election as an example. We’d have a x-million coins. 1 each for every registered votes.
Each coin is attached to a ballot choice. So I go and vote. I get coin 1. Since we have only two choices for President We have a Trump (1) or a Biden (2) message option for that coin message. After I do all the various office positions and click send a coin for each office is minted (put on the chain record) with my vote choice permanently recorded. You can’t go back and have a miss-marked or hanging chad situation. It’s that number. Period.
When you go and cast your vote and click send you mint coins 1,200,000-1,212,000 with your choices.
Once the coins are minted with their notes and the CS is made it can’t be changed, or lost, or ignored.

That’s the point of crypto in a nutshell. Permanently recording information.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 02, 2021 9:30 am 

Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:53 pm
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A bitcoin is not a commodity. It has no use. Meaning the crypto cannot be used for anything. More so if you do not have internet access, electricity, and a device.

Gold, copper, silver, oil are all commodities as they have a use. you can actually do or use them for a purpose.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:13 pm 
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Sadly, I agree.
The initial hope of Bitcoin was to create a trading mechanism independent of government control.
Instead it became a tool of elite “whales”.

Online you can use it to for all sorts of things in the open public web. From tech at tiger direct to a Luxury car at Bit Cars. Some realtors now work with Bitcoin. The national average housing price is 4 Bitcoin. Lol
I use it to pay my monthly cloud storage. Not as easy as it used to be now that I’m paying multiple decimals of a full coin.

If you’re in a larger city area you can spend Bitcoin locally. A local independent gas station takes it. So does the Korean grocery store I like. Etc

Sadly the more expensive it gets the harder it is to utilise at the consumer level.
Bitcoin is a currency, not a commodity

The value is based on
A) the work to make it
And
B) the trust of the community to continue to use it
It’s just another unbacked Fiat currency.

If you want a commodity currency I still suggest the Euro. Though not backed it does maintain a commodity parity. The one ounce 10 euro silver trades at 10 euros. Very different from the US bullion coins faced well below their weight.

For me, it’s just an easy way to pay for a few things in the digital world.


For Investing in crypto I try to guide people to proof of stake coins. Where the coin is the afterthought to the the blockchain. Here coins and tokens are just like stocks.

The blockchain is the commodity, used every day to record all sorts of transactions. From a government trade to a neighbour borrowing a snow blower.
The coin, or token, is the currency hold for investment in the blockchain. Many pOS coins have voting power. You help guide the project by voting for, or against, changes to the technology, expansions, inclusions, and derivatives.

The latest change in crypto is the inclusion of a coin’s hash on another coins chain. So called wrapping.
By placing the fiat coin inside a commodity coin you have, supposedly, both values.
Digital art uses this method. Linking the code of the artwork to a coin’s message field. Paris Hilton sells cat paintings like this.

Some sports “stars” have linked their contracts to DeFi tokens. Allowing investors to buy a percentage of a player’s contract.
A few heavy metal artists have used this to self publish new digital albums. By using inverse splits. The more albums that sell the lower the single token value goes. But each sale splits adds another token to the wallet of previous buyers. The chain is then sold to an independent record distributor (now a recording company) to finance future albums.

There’s also tied stable coins to “invest” in. Which is rather pointless in general. Stable coins and tokens are (ideally) 100% backed commodity tokens.
USDC trades at $0.98-$1.02 and is 99%-101% backed by US Dollars in a cold account. At 0.15% interest it’s rather like any normal bank. Tether on the other hand has an unverified backing with reporters from the mid 70% range to 99%. It also trades at just about $1 and interest varies by holding company.

Commodities tokens tend to be 1:1. BitGold is currently trading in the $1780s slightly above the fully backed gold value.

Oh, and managed portfolios. Here you give the broker y number of dollars with y level of commodity backing to earn (or loose) on z level of floating coins and tokens.
Or: you invest in a 100,000 portfolio. The insurance rate covers, say, 95,000. Here you earn interest on the stable coins and make, or loose, on the investment coins. The interest can be deposited to a standard bank account, held in the stable wallets, increasing the insured coins’ investment value, or moved to another non-stable coin wallet. Or withdrawn completely. Portfolios like this tend to be in the 7-10% interest rates. For big investors monthly interest can quickly surpass the unsecured trade wallets. Often in under a year. 10% of 95,000 is 9,500! Your over your risk point in 7 months.

Wow, this got long. Again.
If you want to try crypto I’d be happy to give my opinions and help in any way you want. I’m no professional and have no backing but I have a general grasp on the premise.
Again I mainly just pay some bills with crypto. Anything beyond that is just ‘oh, kool”.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:23 pm 

Joined: Tue May 14, 2019 11:09 am
Posts: 483
lostinlodos wrote:
If you’re in a larger city area you can spend Bitcoin locally. A local independent gas station takes it. So does the Korean grocery store I like. Etc

First, I don't have any electronic currency except for a debit card so I don't understand how to spend Bitcoin. Second, how would you spend it with the current fluctuation in price?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 03, 2021 6:17 pm 
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I spun this off a a post about laptops. I got a bit more reply out of this than I was expecting.
I didn’t initially intend to do a primer. I just follow sidetracks too easily.

Getting involved is simple with a gateway service like Coinabase, Kraken, Binance. Even PayPal has Bitcoin and Lite Coin now. Sort of.
The fastest way to get involved with both using and/or investing is to use a gateway. Coinbase is the most certified in this country. and the service I use most. kraken has the most loyal user base.
Binance is the oldest.
The easiest way to pay is through such services. Online services like TigerDirect and AWS have integrate payment systems. You go to the pay option and enter their ID code, or, use the sales on-site API service and enter a wallet code from your service, just like entering credit card info. Only letters and numbers. And a longer string

Today many services offer 2nd layer options using a mobile app. This is what has helped local businesses pick it up. The receiver uses their software to make a pay:to barcode. The spender scans the barcode with their crypto app. That’s it. The transactions themselves are instant and locked at the value pricing at the time of the transaction. Same as selling to boardsort. When you submit your quote the value is locked. For x number of days.
On small scale transactions (under a few hundred dollars) that’s the end of it for you.
When I pay for my cloud service each month I load my app. Scan the barcode on my billing page, and click submit.

The few stores around me that take crypto work the same way. Scan barcode. Click submit. Take my purchase and leave.

Obviously bigger transaction are more involved. Just like writing a cheque at a car dealer. Using Bitcoin to buy a car has delays over dropping cash on the counter. You wait the 8-12 minutes for the transaction to get confirmation on the chain. Most large sellers want 5-10 such confirmations. Just to make sure there’s no rollback issues. Which doesn’t happen much (nearly not at all) anymore.

My suggestion is to head over to the Coinbase and Binance websites. Even if you don’t choose their service they have some of the best and most detailed communities and FAQ hand holding to get you through the basics.
You learn a lot from them to help decide how to continue.

The hardest part of crypto in this country is getting in. Know your customer (KYC) laws are very strict. These exchanges ask for lots of info up front because of these laws. It’s a bit overwhelming to be sending a copy of a driver’s licence and other stuff. But they are required by law to have them.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:17 pm 

Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 1:31 pm
Posts: 2
For a long time I wanted to start earning from cryptocurrency. But for this I needed to find a site that I could trust. Having searched the Internet, having tried many crypto exchanges, I found j2tx. There were a lot of good reviews and recommendations.


Last edited by lostinlodos on Wed Oct 27, 2021 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Remove link: site still unverified. I’ll be back


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:16 pm 
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There’s a million different ways and places to use, get, or get rid of crypto.

I’m going to do another of my rare suggested companies to use. I use CoinBase (Coin Base).
They’re 1:1 backed, pooled, shared commodity custodial.
They pay decent interest on selected coins. Because they’re pooled internal transactions (like converting between coins) are free.

They are fully licensed across the country. And are one of the lowest fee choices for a us licensed company.

That said they have two glaring flaws.

Their customer service is non-existent. We’re not talking hours here. Not even days. More like weeks to get a reply.

Their app and consumer website are very hand-holdy. As in Microsoft Bob level easy.

They are excessively over the top on verification. —you’re doing this. Are you sure? Just to be sure. Ok, here it goes… you can still change your mind. Really? Ok. Btw, are you sure?—
In other words you won’t be rapid shooting on a wave.
The upside is purchasing coins and tokens is lightning fast. Most consumer level buys, and quite a few sells, happen in pool so there’s little waiting around.

The most important things to remember:

Verify your chosen exchange/wallet choice independently.

Crypto value is completely free of control. You can shifts of thousands of percentage points in seconds.
I’ve seen coins go from millionths of a cent to hundreds of dollars and drop back down to pennies. In less than an hour.
It’s abnormal but can happen.

First offer coins (new here today) are never a stable choice. It’s pure gambling.
And you won’t find any of those on Coinbase. So if you’re interested in that you’re better off with a site like Kraken or Binance US.
But keep in mind that’s a much less controlled environment.

More than anything else: there is no undo in crypto. Once it is sent, in or out, it’s permanent.

I am not a qualified source of information and the preceding post is for entertainment use only. Only you can make decisions. I am not responsible for your choices. Nor is any other member here, any aspect of the site’s owners, or anyone else. Just you.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 11:21 am 

Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:42 pm
Posts: 227
Location: Troy, NY
It's never been easier in the history of my life (35 years) to sell something, whether it's computer scrap or something that doesn't exist.
I come from a long line of folks that resell things (flea markets, cars, furniture, coins). The struggle was real as a kid, but when I look back, my best investment was signing up for Ebay in the early 2000's and Boardsort in 2014 (Wow, it been almost 8 years here!).
Point is, not sure the Psychology behind it (and I have a Psychology degree) or if there is just that much disposable cash flowing right now, but folks are lining up to buy and just have something. Listings don't last a day. I'm not complaining on my end. Same thing with properties.
If you want some real whacky things to look into, look into the NFT market right now. Folks are literally buying pictures of things (in it's most simple form)
The world is nuts, just go with the flow and adjust and adapt to make money along the way. And be sure to put away your silver bars and ammo.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:39 pm 
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Silver?
I love how big of a drive there is for that today.

A quick search back and your find my personal thoughts on silver.
We all should do what we truly believe is in our best interest.

But I simply don’t see silver being anything to hedge a future in.
There’s just too much of it.
It’s literally investing in dirt. Because nowhere in the United States can you dig virgin soil beyond the top few inches and not have some level of silver. ppm but silver none the less.
Useful but unlikely to have any of the televised jumps.


One thing people miss with crypto is it’s not (generally) the item you’re investing in. It’s the technology. The action and activity.
Fundamentally you’re returning to the age of investment-to-guide.
Token holders have votes. They guide the tech by “burning” their tokens as votes. Votes that pass tend to have a turn out of tokens for the passing voters.

Wise decisions that have majority approval can make changes without permanent cost.
Yet the more radical decisions will still be considered. The minority that wants a change can simply throw money at it to have the change implemented. If the change failed to market they have permanently lost that investment. If it works the token output return will pay back on the cost.

It’s capital economics at the social level.

The spending, commerce, aspect is separate.
For one thing there’s millions of tokens and “coins” out there. But only a handful can be used to directly buy or sell as real currency.
Bitcoin, litecoin, ETH, sure.
And smaller tokens like atom or tron. They have their market uses.

The vast majority need to be converted (sold) into another token or coin for external use. It’s a case where volatility actually creates safety. It keeps hit and run attacks to a minimum.
A major attack this week made me an on-paper billionaire for a few seconds. Lol-hahaha.
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System safeguards and speed of transactions made sure nobody actually cashed out. No harm from the jump.
No token or coin or commodity exists in a large enough scale at a fast enough conversion to be an attack vector.

That said:
NFTs?
Wow. I want a digital copy of something.
NFTs of real objects have a bizarre point.
Take the drawing Paris Hilton did of her cat.
You literally destroy the original and then the digital representation is the only one.
But then you start getting copies of the copy? Uh… uhhuh. Sure.

Then we get to the game company releasing the same item to anyone willing to buy it and the only difference is the block chain number?
That’s not artificial scarcity, that’s just … stupid.
Sure: 1, 7, 13, 666, 777, 99, and 999… instant collectibles.
But that’s not how they system works and that’s never going to expand outside of a core community. It’s a misuse of the tech.

It does show something though: the uses (even misuses) are incredible.
From a contract standpoint the number on the chain can tell the difference between original and copy. No forgeries. No double dipping. No floating or kiting.
It’s binary. Yes and no. On or off.
Original or not.

And there’s no hiding a transaction. Sender and recipient may be anonymous. But the transactions are public. No hiding away in secret.


It’s truly and interesting moment in finance right now. In contracting. In tech as a whole.

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