Why I'm Negative on Bitcoin

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

Hello Everyone,

Quick note before the description (more like script – I wrote this before making the video). I will start responding to all RELEVANT comments on Steemit, so if you want to interact with me feel free to post in the comment section below. Thanks for being a supportive community.

Description:

Today we’re going to talk about the reasons I invest and am involved with Bitcoin. You all have made clear to me just how depressing I can be and how you can slaughter people with the truth, so let’s take a step back and talk about why I am even a part of this Bitcoin movement despite all my negativity. First and foremost, I recommend everyone check out the talks done by Andreas Antonopoulos – especially his meeting with the Canadian Senate a few years back. He’s the king of pro-Bitcoin arguments.

When I first got into Bitcoin, I read and read and read like so many people do when they first learn about this exciting new technology. While this provided me the education required to understand and discuss Bitcoin, it also led my mind down a one-way path. If you listen to Andreas and other pro-Bitcoin opinion leaders, it is hard to imagine a world where Bitcoin doesn’t become adopted as the world currency – even if it doesn’t replace fiat, it would be such an attractive alternative that anyone could use it.

The reality is, Bitcoin is a long way off from what is envisioned for it. The technology is not ready for the level of eyeballs on it as is, and the majority of those eyeballs aren’t even using Bitcoin. We’ve hardly seen anything yet in terms of regulations and laws. We don’t know how businesses will respond once Bitcoin becomes a more tangible threat (right now it’s esoteric in nature e.g: Paypal average 21m transactions/day vs. Bitcoin's 350k). Governments are continuing to work on state-backed cryptocurrencies which will operate much faster than Bitcoin due to their centralization.

These uncertainties lead to the negativity you see in my videos – because I must ground price with reality. The nature of new technologies is that people’s visions often accelerate far beyond where reality is, or accelerate the timeline by which such visions will be achieved. This is what caused the dot-com bubble – people saw the possibilities, but a tad too soon. Similar trends have occurred recently, where people have jumped into AI and IoT over the past decade, yet it is taking far longer than imagined for these incredible innovations to take off. How long will it take before the world is filled with level 5 autonomous vehicles? I’ve seen estimates vary from 10 years to 100.

The point is, we’ve got a long way to go. My role as an influencer, which I have somehow become, is not to talk about what Bitcoin can do. There are hundreds of reliable sources that can provide you with that information. It’s not to sell you a pipeline dream or reinforce the opinions you already have. It is to challenge your assumptions and force you to think critically about this asset that you have placed your hard earned money into. It’s to force you to take a step back and think about other ways in which this can play out.

One of the first lessons students must learn about investing in stocks is that all blue chips will sound like phenomenal companies to invest in. Whether it is Amazon, Netflix, Disney, or Coca Cola, it’s hard to argue against these companies as brands. The analogy I provide students is that you must think about investing just like you would shopping for a new car. You want a certain set of features – maybe you prioritize mileage, or aesthetics, or how fast it can clock from 0 – 60mph.

If you hand that list of features to a sales rep, he’ll find you the perfect match easily. It's not difficult for him to find because your list missed one criterion: Price. Do you pay sticker price for a car? Don’t be like Mrs. Landingham. Always question price and valuation – my content is designed to force you to think about it critically, because otherwise it is easy to get wrapped up in what Bitcoin can do.

I like Bitcoin because it will eventually force existing financial institutions to get their stuff together as Bitcoin improves and more people utilize it. I like Bitcoin because it enables all sorts of interesting applications that go beyond peer to peer payments. I like Bitcoin because it provides one the option to exist outside of a system where monetary policy has reached the edges of what society is willing to accept. I like Bitcoin because the community has kept it alive throughout all these years to pursue ideals that cannot be pursued through traditional, corporate means.

However, my content isn't about any of that even if it does influence it. My channel is centered on investing, trading, speculation, and the emotions of the market. It’s a separate world from the technology and ideals of Bitcoin. You’ll notice that Andreas doesn’t delve into price often, because that is neither his expertise nor his interest. The same is true for Vitalik Buterin, who has sold tons of Ether at low prices to raise capital for the Ethereum Foundation. They are focused on how to change the world – not how to make money.

There are two separate worlds for cryptocurrencies – the world of investing and the world of providing solutions. If you cannot distinguish between these two worlds, you risk being blinded by your ideologies and risk your own financial future. Be cautious of that and you will be a successful investor. Thanks for watching / reading everyone.

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Great video, I agree with pretty much everything what you have mentioned there. While I am betting on Bitcoin to be in a bubble with caution, first of all, it is really hard to speculate on this since there is way too less precise measurement tools based on economic indicators to tell it for sure. I like your Bitcoin vs Visa analogy, in the same time, for instance, I analyze network affects of Bitcoin and that analysis tells another story. I also think that although there will be dips and corrections, this bubble is not yet to explode. This time Wall Street will make this real fucking big and will blow up it together with the stock market and other bubbles Western economies are in at the moment. That's what they need to become even richer, they are the only ones who benefit in a long-run of the way our economies are set up. It feels like we are sort of in the end of 2006 when it was clear that doesn't make any sense anymore, but the party was only around midnight at that point and the strong liquor was yet to be served for real. Anyways, I think it is always smart to hedge your positions, especially, at this point if you have been involved in the game just lately. I bought in when BTC was at $200 and since I really like the idea and even more so the dev team, but I'm not a particular fan of Lambos, luxury goods or any of that stuff, so I'm not going to sell my initial investment even if BTC crashes like 90%. But that's just me, and every person has it's own circumstances and risk tolerance and Iagree with you that it is foolish to fall for euphoria. I almost did that with mining and ASICs at the end of summer when only my deeper analysis revealed me how I'm going to take unnecesary amounts of risk without strong upside. So, I share your view, I just think that it is impossible to call the market tops. It could easily be $20k, $50k, $80k or even more. Diversification and hedging is the key, as you have pointed out many times before.

What I'm more than confident about is that ICOs are most definitely in the bubble because you can measure it way easier since these are essentially companies with CEO, promises, future plans, cashflows (well, maybe not yet), futire income streams etc. And there is almost nothing of it for 95%+ of those projects. It will go on for some time, but eventually the reality kicks in and people will lose shitloads of money.2 main reasons: 1) ICOs are set up to make money 2) with very rare exemptions those projects don't need their own token since it doesn't create any utility and adds unnecessary layer of friction. It's just failure waiting to happen. Sure, there will be some successful projects that will come out with actual business that solves actual real-world problems, but like at least 95% of them will just go to zero. Anyway, let them party and lose if they are too stupid and too lazy to do their research and due diligence. Not to say that I have researched every project out there, but from those ERC20 token projects I have researched and followed, OMG is probably the only one I would put my trust into, and even then I'm hedging that position since most likely they won't be able to deliver on their roadmap as expected. Those projects are heavily reliant on Ethereum updates, and those don't seem to come along as well and even more importantly- as fast as initially expected. I like OMG team though and since I lay my trust in people first, and only then in idea, I will keep a position in OMG, but it will be just 30% of what it used to be. That's my take on this. In this regard I have a question for you. It might not be highly likely scenario, but still- let's say the ICO bubble burst before Bitcoin bubble (assuming it is in a bubble) and before stock market bubble. ICOs fall on their own. In this scenario- what is your take what happens to the price of Bitcoin? I mean, I can argue for it to go both ways, would like to hear your take on this.

Speaking of Ethereum- I used to be very bullish on it but at this point I am slowly becomimg more cautious because of one important reservation I'm having (although I have a relative big position on ETH since I expect for the price to rise in a short to mid term). And that is Solidity, which seems to be pretty much the wrong choice for what Ethereum is supposed to be and supposed to do. Sure, at this point they cannot change this even if they would like to, so they need to figure things out as they are, but my big reservation is what it will continue to cause problems just due to the nature of this code/language, and that can't really be avoided in any certain way. It's sort of similar as Windows and some of the issues they are having for the last 20 years and those cannot be fixed in any easy way since they are part of the very base of how Windows is set up and what it's logic is. That is my one big reservation with Ethereum in a long run and would like to hear your thoughts on this as you might have different view on this and maybe you can point out to some things I'm missing here in this regard.

Speaking of other top10 coins, I pretty much think that everything is in a bubble there. I'm positive on what Monero team is doing and the way how they have handled the issues throughout the year, so again I lay my trust in the dev team not just in the idea and I'm actually continue to slowly accumulate more Monero even at this price. Sure, IOTA has tremendous upside, but it is essentially yet in Beta mode, so huge upside comes with huge risk. Cardano looks really solid, but to invest at it at this stage seems a bit ridiculous. Although their team seems solid, idea is great, it is all pretty much on the paper as for now. I want to see more proof in a long term and what they can deliver. Charles is a brilliant mind, but he has a track record of running away from problems and starting the next big thing whenever something goes wrong. I'm optimistic but cautious at the same time. Litecoin serves a clear purpose, and that is to be a test network/ground for Bitcoin. Which is not a bad thing since it has a clear purpose that most of the projects are missing. Just I wouldn't overestimate it and that Gold/Silver analogy.. well, let's say I just don't buy it at all. Ripple is on its own realm and kinda difficult to compare it to other projects. At least, it serves a clear purpose and has a track-record even if you are not particular fan of the idea behind it. I don't invest in Ripple cause I have no interest to follow on what is going on in their community and with the tech improvements, but I don't necessarily bash it either. It serves a purpose, well, it is supposed to serve in the future, to be more precise. How many of those coins/tokens serves a purpose!? I can't comment on NEM since I don't fully grasp that project and haven't done my homework, but as far as the rest of the projects go, as far as I'm concerned BCash is doomed to fail, and for me it is not a question of if but rather when. Not saying you can't make money in a short term with trading it, but in a long run I believe it just doesn't stand much of a a chance. Dash has some major flaws and I'm a bit surprised that the market doesn't see those. I have done my homework on this one quite a long time ago and still I don't see much of the long-term potential, so I definitely see it as overbought, even more so than most of the other coins in top10-top15. BGold is not even worth to mention with its artificial imflated market cap and low development activity. EOS and Qtum- well, since I said that I lay my trust in people first and only then into the idea itself- I can't say that it is a good investment. Very risky IMHO. Depends of your risk tolerance. Stellar is interesting though. NEO- I definitely wouldn't buy it at this point.

Just to point out- I'm no expert by any means. I'm just an enthusiast of the technology, it's future applications and its potential. To some degree I have been involved in the space since the 2013 But I pretty much agree with you on the timeframe for all of this. My interest in trading comes only after all of this, although I take part in the market, analyze situations, constantly educate myself, and try to keep in mind that I might be totally off with my predictions and analasys since under no circumstances you have a full-information, besides market conditions constantly changes, so should your view.

Appreciate your content and I feel that we share a similar view on a lot of things that is going on the space.

Thanks for that. I've read every single word.

Webmora,

On the topic of ICOs, I discuss that in a previous article I've written as a catalyst that could cause Bitcoin to spiral: https://medium.com/@Truth_Investor/bitcoin-three-ways-the-bubble-will-pop-40678ce11698 (number two). Here's the response I gave to someone who questioned how a collapse in ICO funding could potentially cause Bitcoin to fall:

"Yes, Bitcoin is not directly affected by ICOs. However, it is correlated with Ethereum and will be dragged down if Ethereum goes down regardless of whether or not it makes sense, similar to how small caps can move down on macro news that has literally zero impact on them. Note that correlations (the statistic) increase during bear markets.

A lush ICO economy leads to extensive visibility from VCs, wealth managers, and accredited investors. They become exposed to the entire cryptocurrency scene. I work with two wealth managers who wouldn’t know a thing about Bitcoin if it wasn’t for what they heard about blockchain applications. One of them is considering buying. They are whales."

As for your thoughts on Ethereum with Solidity, I have no strong opinions as I am not technically qualified enough to comment on it specifically. I've done limited reading on the subject that illustrate the flaws you are concerned with, but the technology or underlying code has never been a concern to me with most of these cryptocurrency projects that have actually have an existing product. What I've found to be true throughout history is that solutions exist or will be made at a far faster rate than they get implemented due to the nature of bureaucracy, which gets even worse with open source projects. I know that's a general comment to your rather specific concern, but it tends to repeat enough that I apply it more as a rule of thumb. The politics of Bitcoin / Ethereum and all the other cryptocurrencies will play a far greater role in the speed of their adoption than tech will.

I appreciate reading your assessment of the top cryptocurrencies out there, as I am sure many others are as well (evident by the upvotes on the comment!). Don't undersell yourself - as mentioned in one of these responses, you could easily make content yourself (and I would recommend you give it a shot). I hope to attract more quality contributions such as this comment from you in the future as well as others. Perhaps at some point I will have a relevant amount of Steem Power to reward such contributions fiscally. But for now, thank you for taking the time to write this out and I hope you stick around.

Some good points. You should take this content and create your own post. ;)

I got to say, you could potentially be one of the most successful traders in the world. You know tech, hype, and do your homework like a boss. I agree with you for the majority of your points. Especially for the lambo part, lol.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Great video as always. Lately I see more and more people concerned about the parabolic growth of BTC. I think most of this fear is driven due to the high number (19k) in the price. Obviously the adoption does not justify the value but I don't see bitcoin the way it is today (e.g. 10min verification, high transaction fees and increase in value) to take the place of a daily used currency. However if we consider that bitcoin is a global currency and almost investors from every country are putting money into it, is this really a high price? I really want to know what you think about that.

Yes it's really still a high price. It's very easy to compare Bitcoin to everything that is bigger than it - often people are absurd with their comparisons and go as far as to compare to global money supply, global gold market cap, global equities markets, global fixed income, etc.

What you never hear from these same people is how Bitcoin is already bigger than Visa despite the fact ... wait for it... Visa handles TRILLIONS of dollars worth of transactions. It's not apples to apples for several reasons, the biggest being that Bitcoin acts as the token for these transactions meaning the value of Bitcoin comes from the value of the transactions rather than the transaction fees, but it's so many orders of magnitude behind that we can infer it shouldn't even close to this price based on being a transaction medium.

Furthermore, the digital gold argument associates Bitcoin with being a store of value. Yet if this were true, why aren't people putting 100% of their value into Bitcoin? Bitcoin has had several bubble pops throughout history, absurd falls of over 80%. The digital gold argument falls apart the moment that happens.

The best reason to justify Bitcoin's current price is that it will replace fiat currencies very soon (20 years-ish), hence the present value is justified due to absurdly high future value. However, I see that possibility as infinitesimally small due to the fact that governments would have to accept Bitcoin for taxes / debt which is a conundrum in of itself, deflationary currencies likely won't work well supporting a global economy, and host of other reasons that I probably shouldn't list in a response to a comment. But I hope that illustrates the point.

I think that people just won't adopt bitcoin. Simply. The prime reason is the retarded blocksize limitations.

Agreed.

The tragic part is that lightning will require much larger blocks in order to function properly anyway. They may as well start increasing it now so the network could actually be used in commerce, so it can actually benefit from the network effect, and justify at least some of its price growth.

Agree, I do think the store of value or digital gold labels are just created to cover the problems that Bitcoin has right now. Bitcoin is "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System", according to the paper of Satoshi. If any deflationary cryptos can be the store of value, why not ETH(potentially), LTC, etc? I think ETH or some other smart contract platforms will dethrone BTC sooner or later. And all of those scammy fork coins will be worthless if they didn't put some real tech into the system.

I thought about the same and it was really surprising to see someone saying the words I would have said, but just better. Congrats, you seem to have a well consolidated opinion about Bitcoin's value.

I agree that BTC has issues and its price seems disconnected from its value. Someone recently posted about that... Price is what it costs, value is what its worth.

What bitcoin does estsblishes its value, and price can follow value but not always as a 100% positive correlation.

In my mind what bitcoin does Dash and Litecoin are objectively better at, yet btc rules the marketcap.

Like you. Im not down on btc. I like it. I trade it. But right now im more bullish on other things because in my view there are other coins where the value is MUCH higher than current price reflects.

So glad you are on steemit!
Love your content!
Up-voted and resteemed.

Thanks for the comment! Unfortunately even if you look at Litecoin & Dash, their transaction volume to market cap ratio is not great either. The whole field is filled with euphoria, fueled initially by Bitcoin. It's still very interesting to watch and even more interesting to trade, but must be careful in all of it given that Bitcoin affects all (and hence why majority of my content focuses on it). Hope you stick around!

I am curious what your thoughts are on Hash Graph?

Two things: 1) You point out the psychological effect surrounding people's minds right now (thank you for that.) 2) Someone I listened to over the weekend (you?) said that you need at least one naysayer/devils advocate on your team, b/c soundbox yes-men will not push your mind outside yourself. For that, you fill that role well, and I want to thank you for that- I find it very valuable.
Best,
Brian

First and foremost, love your content & critical analysis in a time where everyone is absurdly bullish.

I know you didn't want questions like "What do you think of X currency" etc.

However, can you answer this?

If you had just discovered the crypto space and wanted to invest just $100, where would you put it? I'm not asking for financial advise. I'm just curious on your opinion as a longterm hold with the CURRENT prices. What % would you put into which currencies for a relatively safe investment? (keyword being relative, I understand crypto is a very high risk environment in general at the moment)

Do you think of ALL crypto as a bubble given the current hype? Or do you think there are crypto's that have largely been unaffected by the BTC mania? If so, which of these crypto's do you consider to be unaffected and a reasonable investment.

I am not asking for investment advice, I am asking for your opinion. I understand your answer is not investment advice and everyone should only invest what they are fully willing to lose.

With $100, assuming you live in a first world country, any losses aren't going to substantially affect you even if you're young. It may take a while to get $100 back, but in the long-run it won't affect you much. Hence I'd say stick with the large-cap cryptocurrencies (top 10 or so). Personally I'd recommend splitting it between Bitcoin and Ethereum. I like Ethereum more right now (and my portfolio currently has much more ETH than BTC), but Bitcoin is the granddaddy so it's hard to argue against. GDAX has no fees for limit orders, which is very important when working with lower amounts.

Yes, I think most of crypto is a bubble right now because of the Bitcoin mania. Some things are less bubbly than others and I tend to think have a lower probability of popping, but there are cryptocurrencies that have no working product which have market caps larger than a billion, and many more with market caps over $100m. There is no cryptocurrency that is unaffected, but it's not worth staying out of the market just because of that since there is such large return opportunities - rather to watch it closely and scale your positions appropriately.

I would like to know your opinion about ETHlend, a live (alpha on mainnet) collateralized P2P lending DAPP. Its marketcap is less than 100M, which is relatively less bubble like, I would say.

Thank you for this...you've effectively let me observe that my guard is especially prone to be down when I'm reading and investing in bitcoin.

I've been thinking about buying an antminer S9 (atleast a 2100$ investment) for a few weeks and for me it is quite an investment and is probably a very risky move (involving taking a small loan).

This video let me step back and reflect if that is an appropriate decision and if it is worthwhile, keep making videos, thanks!
REPLY

Dude life pro tip: never take loans to invest in high risk assets. Its a recipe to disaster.

I'd be especially careful with purchasing mining equipment right now, especially one as old as the S9 is. ASICs get outdated quickly given the massive rise in the hashing rate of the network.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Interesting video... Basically you're telling people it's important to use logic, understand what might be and what will be are 2 different things, and to sometimes bring yourself outside of the echo-chamber you are use to, all of which I mostly agree with.

The only thing I would say to somewhat dispute your throught process is to remind you that things move 100x faster now-a-days then they did in the past. An an example of this, you brought up how the internet took longer then it should of to get mass adoption and to be implemented into businesses and society, which is true... BUT would that of been the case if the internet already existed to pass along the idea of the internet to the mass population? Basically my point is before the internet existed thoughts/ideas took far longer to reach critical mass so comparing the world pre-internet to the world post-internet is not a good way to look at things as now-a-days a thought/idea can go viral via the internet 10000000x faster then it ever could in the past. Is the crypto prices ahead of where they should be? more then likely yes... but is the cryptos decades away from being mass adopted and implemented into business and society as a whole? In my strong opinion hell no... We are in a world that is stuck in fast-forward now due to the internet, so try not to compare the world of today with the trends/patterns of yesterday otherwise you really are comparing apples and oranges and it may very well cloud your overall understand of the likley path forward, and its potential timeline.

Just some food for thought.

I have considered this - the fact that the physical infrastructure exists and the internet is already developed which will speed up adoption. Andreas, in the meeting with the Senate I mention above, estimated roughly 8 years for substantial adoption if I recall correctly (so 2022) because of these factors. However, I suspect it will take far longer. Open source slows down development and the decentralization of Bitcoin has already illustrated how gridlock can happen. Governance is all over the place.

Furthermore, the banks and fintech companies really aren't taking Bitcoin seriously yet. They are beginning to explore private blockchains, but with limited investment. More importantly, I guarantee you there are already ways to improve their businesses that they just haven't implemented yet because there isn't an economic incentive to do so yet. If Bitcoin begins taking their market share (or another crypto does), they will employ those technologies.

As time goes on, financial institutions won't stay still. Given this, Bitcoin must not only catch up to existing technology, but also future technology. I tend to think it will take far longer than you would suspect (20 years+). But that's one man's opinion.

It bothers me too when I hear everyone talking about Bitcoin like all they have to do is buy some and hang on for the ride. I love Bitcoin, Im mining it, and Im not rich yet but we'll see how it goes from now until 2021. Do you think Borderless Currency is a good reason to invest? Do you think we'll see our Steemit fortunes swell up and make us rich? What do you think of Ethereum and what will become in the long run with the millions lost/locked up due to a coding error? Are you going to jump on freedom-social 1776 token and do you think SparkleCoin has a future. I ask because I think both are special cases in the cryptocurrency world. Lastly, because you are such a rock star, what do you think of my U4Ride.atlantaairport.taxi venture, Im planning a Taxi Token and a $300,000 ICO. And hell yeah, you are welcome at my Aragon.one board of directors table just based on the handful of your videos Ive seen.

The Human Brain is the most complex living thing in the Universe. My Replika AI told me that.....

Look forward to your reply, or at least an upvote.

What you've posted is something I've been thinking about the past few days. Yes, I'm carefully mining/investing, but I realized that Bitcoin -- as a transaction medium -- isn't working. You can't say that it's fulfilling its duty as a digital currency when you have 160,000+ unconfirmed transactions and those that are confirmed aren't done so for 70 - 90 hours.

I do think that (part) of its growth is due to the fact that more and more people want to "separate" their finances from their respective fiat currencies. Bitcoin -- because of its finite supply -- seems to be fitting the bill...at least for now. Still, I wasn't expecting to see Bitcoin $18,000 this soon. I, to, think it's overvalued...at least at present.

I'm not the expert in crytocurrency (yet), but I believe we really need a fork that will improve the usability and speed of Bitcoin transactions. This ongoing mess will only get worse as more money piles in. Or, as time goes on, alternate currencies will eventually rise and take Bitcoin's place.

In the meantime, I think we can both agree that we should invest carefully and take gains for now, but have an exit strategy in place if/when things turn.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness and how you separate emotion from fact. It's rare these days.

For now, I think it'd be best to hold off on forks and work on off-scale solutions to see if they work. If that doesn't work, or if it needs further scaling (as we are many orders of magnitude away from Visa level processing), then can start thinking about more on-chain solutions through forks. Thank you for your comment.

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I know you were saying that forks shouldn't be implemented.....so I figured you might want to see this, if you haven't already...

http://lightningbitcoin.io/

I really like your video. Very insightful and helps me in reviewing my strategy.

Thanks for watching cpt.

Hey, what do you think about the alt's capitalization? Do some have justifiable future value present valuations in regards to their penetration of the real economy with acutal applications? global remmitances, prediction markets, smart contracts. If CCs penetrate the real economy, as in people using and holding on to them (as opposed to selling them through bitpay), which sector of commerce will it get through in first?

Most alts are directly affected by the run-up in Bitcoin and hence are likely in bubbles as well (and in some cases even more-so than Bitcoin, in others less-so). In the ideal case where we see cryptocurrencies become real competitors in the world, then likely the ones that have been tested and are successful products will have a much higher chance of survival than the many projects that are just ideas or very low adoption. Hence why it is critical not to invest much the lower you go in the list.

What do you mean by ''successful projects''? Is having a working payment network a ''successful project'' or do you refer to more complex applications like ripplenet's xCurrent, xRapid and
xVia? or cloud computing and storage services.

Good to know you are here on steemit.
You are one of the people that isnt delusional about the cryptos.
Like you said, we are all betting on what bitcoin might be, and in the end we dont have any parameter to evaluate the true value of the cryptos.
Keep your good work!

Yes - far too many people that are certain in a world of uncertainties. Many of these people likely would be better off with blockchain jobs rather than investing because those jobs let you take that passion and put it to good work. Or invest directly into blockchain related companies or efforts that support Bitcoin. Passion with investing tends to lead to extreme results - both good and bad.

Usually bad ones.
Its been around 6 months i started to learn more about How the market Works(one month with cryptos), and see If i can do something with It, and one thing that i see now and then that always strikes me is that affirmation that "If most of the people lose money on the market, the best thing to do is the opposite of what everyone is doing"
I bought a small amount of BTC but what i think i am seeing is the announcement If the first crypto catastrophe.
Cryptos technology definetly wont end, but maybe a big hit is betting closer everyday...
But maybe not. Who knows?

I don't get how you can compare trading currencies to buying a retail vehicle with cash. They are so much different when normal thought is used. Who has been giving discounts on BTC purchases!?

The point is that Mr. Market (sales rep) sometimes charges you sticker price and you should think twice when he does.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Actually crypto and fiat arent that different.
Cash is seen as money, only because It is a consensus to give value to that piece of paper.
The big difference is in who control its flow and its rules.

It's actually very refreshing to see your motives and overall opinion
Really refreshing to see your opinion as always
Thanks!

I'm glad you like it, thanks for watching.

I like your focus on risk. It's my main concern, with these high valuations and... ''doesn't have to become a currency because it can just be a 'store of value'''( what?)

yes bitcoin will stay as Gold 2.0 and other will dominate like hashgraph

Great reply @marco-delsalto ! ...
I guess changing human history is valuable to worth A LOT... Rigth @cryptovestor ?

Hashgraph Baby!

Wow...i...what....shit...
This is the most easily understandable vídeo about i ever seen about blockchains...
Time to Google hashgraph!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Like andreas said. If use defines the price of a currency and a major country "bans" bitcoin or makes it "illegal", than that will crash bitcoin. Even if it's not possible to do so on a technological level...

Pretty much - there are many libertarians who would continue to use Bitcoin, even more enthusiasts - but majority of adopters will stop the moment it is made illegal. Fortunately there is little to no economic incentive for a government to take such an action since Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies = more taxes for them.

Good video and it's ok to be skeptical. We all are in certain areas! Thanks for posting

Thanks for the video.

Σ$$$ Tipped @cryptovestor Σ20 SMART! Comment @smartbot help to claim. Currently the price of SmartCash in the market is $0.149 USD per SMART. Current value of the tip is $2.98 USD. To find out more about SmartCash, please visit https://smartcash.cc.

I agree with much of what was said in this post, but disagree as well. We are where the internet was prior to 1982 when the (TCP/IP) was standardized. There is still a lot of global calibration for blockchain technologies to be able to work seamlessly and interchangeably.

With this being said, once this gets into the "1998 of Internet", we are going to see some real madness. Hopefully people and governments will have learned the lessons from the growth and impact of the internet, because this will redefine how data is stored/transferred/used.

I guess it's a question of what year we're in (1996 or 1999) - plenty of people on both sides.

I agree with must of what you say, and I think a lot of people would benefit from seeing your point of view from time to time. What new investors often forget and even seasoned investors, is that ''risk and reward goes hand in hand''. One of the worst things you can do in investing or any other decision in life, is it economic or not. Is to ''assume your conclusions''. Because then you are actually not testing the data, but your personal opinion. (and just so you know, that's a big no no). If you shoot someone down for pointing out another way of viewing a problem or something you want to test (data), then your test is going to come out wrong/false. If you see Bitcoin as a thing that is only a succes story, and ignore the risk or any downside then you are ''assuming your conclusions!'' And by the way, if you ''assume your conclusions'' and only look at the upside, then you are quickly going to be out of a job atleast if you care about statistics.

I did enjoy this video. I jumped into the cryptocurrency game pretty late. I just started my path to financial freedom a couple of months ago and chose to pay my car and mortgage off first before investing, lol. Didnt think i would look back on that as a mistake. I saved $20K in interest but could have had $100K in profit. Anyway, great video.

It wasn't a mistake. Many financial advisors recommend you pay off all debts because it frees your income to do so many things - you can survive with very little income now. Even if you lost ALL your money now in cryptocurrencies, your monthly obligations will be so low that even a job that pays close to minimum wage should be enough to survive on. Becoming debt free is a lifelong objective for many people that they never achieve.

Based on recent performance, it would have made sense to buy bitcoin for debt. Really not sure at current levels though :)

It's all guesses right now. A bunch of past opportunities look like great now. I was doing the safe thing. I guess I could have done worse, lol

You did good you never know what happens. I read an article where a family sold their house, car,... almost everything. They were lucky that BTC actually went up. Imagine it tanked...

Thanks. I had a long hard talk with myself about this the other day. I did what I knew was the sure thing. After two weeks of trading, I'm up $4k. I have to pull my initial investment out at the end of the week to buy my first rental. I have reduced my monthly overhead by $900 dollars and I don't plan on giving up on my financial freedom goals.

Why do people still write bitcoin with the capital B.

There are separate use cases for Bitcoin vs. bitcoin. The old adage is that Bitcoin is the protocol and bitcoin is the currency, but honestly I just prefer the look of Bitcoin.

Whining about negativity is not an argument, just the chatter of people desperately trying to rationalize their exposure to a massive bubble. I've never actually seen anyone even try to justify Bitcoin's market cap, merely shrieks about a digital store of value while clearly not understanding what a store of value is. If Bitcoin isn't being/can't be used in commerce in a significant way, what value is there to store in the first place? What is the utility value of a payment network with fees around $20-30 and a maximum capacity of ~350,000 transactions/day? Zero, or very close to it. It's only viable use-case is large remittance payments, which can also be executed in any other cryptocurrency. The rampant speculation filling up blocks and driving up fees has destroyed any utility value it may have commanded.

Fairly accurate representation of what reality is, although I think it's worth a little more than you think due to future potential to make it much more useful as a transaction medium. Otherwise, it's pretty much as you describe it (unfortunately).

It is unfortunate, since a lot of people's first experience with cryptocurrency may well be buying Bitcoin in the 18-20k range (maybe 30k, 50k, 100k, impossible to tell how large a bubble can get) and bitterly taking a 40-60% loss after the bubble bursts and they give up on it. The entire crypto space would be better off if its poster child were a more fundamentally sound project, with a more limited downside due to a solid floor of utility value. Hopefully it goes more smoothly than I see it going, because a lot of people might be left with a sour taste in their mouths about distributed ledgers as a whole for a long time after falling for peak-bubble FOMO.

think of it, if bitcoin does reach 1 million, the fees will be astronomical and it will take days even weeks for transfers to get through...

very well! Thanks !!!

I am actually on the same page as you. I don't think Bitcoin has a future because simply it's features are becoming obsolete.

BTC looks set to test the rising trendline support of $17,500 in the next 12 hours. However, the support might hold, since the dips below the upward sloping 10-day MA ($17,756) are likely to be short-lived. Furthermore, a pullback in alternative currencies could take the pressure off bitcoin.

However, a close (as per UTC) below $17,500 would add confirm the bearish hanging-man reversal and bearish RSI divergence. As history shows, bitcoin has suffered major corrections following confirmation of the bearish RSI divergence.

Hence, a close below $17,500 could potentially yield a decline to $13,500 (Dec. 12 low).

On the other hand, a move above the 5-day MA ($18,822) in the next few hours could put a return to $20,000 back on the table.

Thanks for the TA. Not sure how relevant it is in a market dominated by this level of emotion (most indicators will say Bitcoin is overbought in many cases), but at the very least the support and resistance levels are watched by enough that it works through self-fulfilling prophecy.

X03AG.gif
Chuck Seal of Approval!

I like btc but for now it is too high. There are other coin to consider which is also good as bitcoin to invest:)

I think it all comes out to whats your finall goal. Your end game.

I dont care about short or mid term profits meassured in fiat. I track these stats, but I dont care.

Im mentally in 2020 so I dont care about current price or state of the tech. Im here for the freedom and biggest revolution since internet.

Futures are for the first time signaling negative trend. I love it! I want to see the blood. I want to get discounts for only free money on the planet.

Thats my view.

Yes, but just be careful not to risk your financial future on a nascent technology is all I'd say.

I just started watching your youtube channel and I love your stuff. I'm just curious as to why you recommend to base all of your investments off of bitcoin instead of usd. I'm sorry if you've already answered this question but I couldn't find it anywhere and I don't remember the video where you talk about this.
The way that I think of it logically is that since usd is the currency that I'm trying to get more of, I should base my earnings off of how much money I make in usd. For example, the situation I have in my head (and I might be wrong) is lets say I have $100 of etherium and the usd price of etherium drops 10% but the usd price of bitcoin drops 20%. In this case etherium would have gone up in relation to bitcoin but it went down in relation to usd, so if I was basing my investment off of bitcoin I would think that I have done well but now I only have $90 worth of etherium so really I lost $10.
If you already have a video explaining this can you please link it? Also if not, I think this would be a great video topic.

Check two posts ago where I talk about the #1 mistake beginners make - that's where I talked about it. However, many people still had a question along your lines because I mentioned 'destroying value' in the video if you're up against USD, but down against BTC so will clarify here.

Probably the easiest way to understand it is to imagine that you hired someone else to manage your investments into cryptocurrencies. This person invests in Ark and doubles your USD. But had you just bought Bitcoin, you would have quadrupled your money. You likely wouldn't be too happy with the person you hired to manage your investments would you? You could have just bought Bitcoin and got double the return! You might even go as far as to fire the person. This is the dilemma wealth managers face in the real world when comparing against the S&P 500.

However, if that wealth manager can illustrate that they took on less risk during that time frame, or illustrate to you in a meaningful way that their bet will pay off in the long-term and the market is being irrational in the short-term, then you may decide to keep them around. Imagine yourself as that wealth manager. If you're underperforming Bitcoin, then you must justify that underperformance with logic otherwise you are just destroying value for your client: Yourself.

Hope that makes some sense.

Btc has future but i agree that it needs ''correction''. I m all in cryptocurrency by the way :)

solid piece. i was lucky enough to read the whole thing and get your angle on it - i'm on the providing solutions side, once i've got all my life basics covered by regular involvement in projects i can finally do my best work. i'm excited for those times to come because they are coming about really quickly!

That's great! The more who contribute to the industry, the higher the real value of it goes no matter what Mr. Market has to say on a particular day.

Are you paying the right price for this asset? That is the essential question. I liked your video, and I have come to the sobering realization that BTC is not useful, and thus I am not paying the right prices for this asset. I posted similar recently.

That's always the question for investing. Thanks for the comment bon.

Good post! Bitcoin is good, but steemit will be better soon. I follow and upvote you, do same for me.

Logically, I tend to come to the conclusion that Bitcoin doesn't have realistic use today or in the future in the form it is in to be a standard for transaction. If it is to be a store of value, I feel like it will end up being gamed by Wall Street, and that's kind of mission failed for Bitcoin.
For any crypto to succeed in the mission of realizing the potential for better form of money, or any confident medium of currency that people don't mind trading you goods and services for, we're so far away from it. But you have options like Bitcoin Cash, as well as so many others, that assumes this as a hurdle to overcome and puts resources to marketing, and evolving the protocol. This seems like the right path. Do you think the crypto community has the energy and direction to continue to fulfill that original "mission" the reason why a lot of crypto people got into it in the first place? or the whole thing will be gamed, because of course the people that are coming in now in the mania are only in it to "play the game".
Does the mass even want to take control of their own money? Do they even care? I tend to think that the mass will always be "gamed" because the mass may not choose a better alternative. Or can the vision of crypto appeal to the masses?
Crypto needs to be like Apple, well designed, any idiot can use it.
Right now mass adoption looks like a blessing and a curse. Euphoria is there for the investor/speculators but maybe also for the teams behind the projects. I think the crypto that will survive needs to have a cool head and think about whether this hype is productive in the advancing of the mission, or if you buy the hype we'll all be gamed again by the ones in control.

That said, anyone know of a coin that excites you? In terms of technology and the vision, not the hype.

I think it will eventually evolve into something awesome (the original 'mission'), just going to take a lot longer than people expect. A bit of crab bucket mentality with hard forks in cryptocurrencies (e.g: ETH vs. ETC & BTC vs. BCH).

The masses don't care - they may claim they do, but what they want is convenience and somebody else to take care of all the problems (which is what banks do - you don't have to worry about personal security or just about anything else). It definitely needs to become more convenient to use than other alternatives for it to see mass adoption.

"There are two separate worlds for cryptocurrencies – the world of investing and the world of providing solutions."

Otherwise Bitcoin price would be way below STEEM.

Btw, good luck with moving your community interaction from Youtube to Steem. On-boarding is still not as easy as we would like to, but we are improving as a platform.

All good - it's nice having a limited number of comments so that I can keep up and the ability to reward comments which provide meaningful value (even though currently my SP is too low for it to be much, might change that in the future).

Well though and clear structured video, which I do agree the most. Did not know the video link of Andreas Antonopoulos, which was just amazing in front the Canadian Senate.
Bitcoin is in the current state pure speculative, you can make a lot of money and this will for sure blind you to put even more money in. Once the price stays at a certain level and the volatility reduces itself, the mainstream market will join it and this will even attract more people to use it.
I really don't think that we are in a bubble, so speaking that the price could drop back to 2k USD for BTC. But corrections of daily 10-20% will be natural and expected by all current participants in the Bitcoin market. Every 10% is a great chance to rebuy, every 10% higher price a great chance to sell partly. That's in the nature of a non regulated market, like we maybe did not seen for a very long time in the past. That's why this is so spectacular. The usage of Bitcoins or any other currency will be developed in the next few years...

There has been enough times that Bitcoin has crashed over 80% in the few years of its existence that I am less certain that we aren't in a bubble (well actually I'm quite certain and I'll be doing a rather in-depth article that attempts to 'prove' it as if we are in a court of law soon).

Hi, thanks again for making another great video.

You draw an analogy between investors' optimism on the potential of the internet etc before the dot-com crash and bitcoin. I was wondering, considering that these investors were so bullish over the potential of the internet, just the same with bitcoin over the long-term, does the bubble popping really matter, if in the long-term everyone thinks things are going to be so great anyways?

Of course it matters - if your investment goes down 80%, even if it ultimately recovers there is still going to be a time where you lose a substantial amount of money and there is no guarantee that it recovers either which will emotionally strain you. As said in the video / description, there are two separate worlds: Investing & Technology. Technology won't care if price goes down 80% (well except capital will dry up which means less funding so slower progression), but investors all should care.

It is like a product, first there are the early adaptors, then the trendsetters, then everyone wants it (now) and suddenly it is saturated and stops being interesting. The price can't keep rising because it won't grow as fast so you won't make as much profit.

I follow you on youtube too .

Welcome to Steemit!

UPVOTE AND RESTEEMED

very congratulations..!!

this is a realy Great video !. Thank you for sharing. Please keep it up. I already upvote. i like it veryy very..

Your views are very much thought-evoking and I do share many of your ideas - I think the madness of what's going on at the moment is really challenging the sanity of even the brightest minds! From my perspective, there's almost too many well-articulated, greatly convincing advocates which have done an amazing job at marketing BTC. Perhaps so much so that it's cast a shadow on the inefficiencies of the system. What do you feel about claims that the BTC inner circle are jumping ship because the core BTC dev team are reluctant to bring it into an arena where they can actually compete with several others of the newest and most technologically advanced coins, which serve a better purpose to their original intent? By looking at peoples emotions, and what BTC has done to them I would argue that a sudden major drop in BTC (20-30%++) would have some interesting effects on the market; namely a massive influx of fresh speculation into BTC for all the souls who feel they missed the train and now it's time to get back on board when they have a shot. This despite faster and cheaper transactions, and more utility in other coins.

C

Do you have any premium content (paid) with investment opportunities available? Thank you for your great content, always!

Not at this time kirk, but I consider it a nice compliment that you have asked!

Just wanted to say thank you for your videos. I got into cryptocurrencies back in 2015 and it is refreshing to find a down to earth investor like yourself.

J. R.

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  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Hi @cryptovestor,

Thank you for this great article. You're not alone finding bitcoin overvalued. I'm also very cautious on it. This is why 3/4 of my portfolio is in altcoins.

I've started investing only four months ago, but I've noticed that each time bitcoin dips the altcoin dips too, and that is counter intuitive to me.

Since you're quite good at speculative analysis, and you have more experience than me, what do you think would happens to altcoins in case of a major bitcoin correction or crash? Most of your speculative videos focus on bitcoin. Would you consider doing another one from the altcoins perspective? What are your altcoin strategies when BTC have strong rallies or dips, from a trading or investing point of view.

nice post and pic
Dont forget to upvote follow & resteem
@nurdinnakaturi

Glad you’re now on Steem as well Crypto Investor. You’re bound to attract criticism from the quasi-religious crypto types who can’t accept that a needed market correction can and almost certainly is coming eventually.

Just keep keeping it real, as a City guy in London with an asset management background you’re one of the few who I listen to for inciteful, thoughtful commentary on all this and stops me getting too carried away with the paper gains and irrational exuberance.

Glad to have you etheos!

I think my analysis was right so far:

It looks like my analysis about the Bitcoin battle was right so far:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@the.privatier/12-important-things-you-need-to-know-when-deciding-about-investing-in-bitcoin-cash-or-bitcoin

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Great stuff as usual. I agree that it's refreshing and important to get an alternative view on Bitcoin in a world where everyone seems to be evangelising.

However, I do also realise that you also have an appreciation that Bitcoin will probably still go up at least in the short term (I don't want to put words in your mouth but hope you know what I mean).

My question is, with the current low transaction numbers and high fees associated with BTC, do you have any other particular indicators in mind that would make you move your position substantially out of Bitcoin altogether and make you think, this is done?

No - if I did, life would be much easier. That's why I continue to monitor sentiment through news, online, and anecdotally in my own life. We're already starting to see a shift as more people view Bitcoin as a bubble which is concerning. I've made enough at this point that I will come out of this with a substantial profit regardless, so will continue to take risks as those risks continue to pay off. There are some potential metrics to watch (Market Cap / Transaction Volume ratio for example) that you can use for ideas of when to sell, but I have a feeling this particular bubble will defy all logic as it continues to rise from 'investors' chasing performance.

Thanks a lot. As someone new to the space I'm really excited about the potential positive effects blockchain technology could have in ways we haven't even conceived of yet. However, I do worry that the way we're going, if (or when) this bubble bursts it could be hugely damaging for future adoption across the board and could really slow progress. I guess we just have to hang tight and try hard not get badly burned along the way.

I am waiting for the wonderful continuation...

Nice FUD...

No, it’s called an alternative perspective. To make your own informed viewpoint you need to listen and analyse all sides to form it. Otherwise you speak from a one sided place of ignorance.

So dismissing a thoughtful post like this as mere FUD just shows you’re DUM.

I have listened many videos from cryptovestor on youtube, i dont dismiss them, i form my opinion after listen to his arguments, and my conclusion is this is simply FUD... You may call my a DUM for having that opinion, thats ok, i have been called worst...
I simply dont see any point on comparing crypto with the .com bubble or even with any stock market, its just not the same, i think thats the big hole in his all argument, and the fact that BTC is deflationary and the offer wont grow, but the demand will always grow exponentially, it is impossible to be a bubble... It really doesnt matter is BTC is a bad crypto in terms of speed or fees, its BTC, its the first crypto and people is using as a store of value (and a mean to earn money), and that wont be changing any time in the future...
His FUD may be due to 2 different things: legit fear because price went up too much and too fast, or simply trying to stop other people from buying BTC, you see, the more people buy BTC the less BTC there is and it will be harder to buy any in the future... There are A LOT of investor that been trying to spread fear all the year (even when BTC was at 1700$, dont buy! its s bubble!), trying to stop people from buying BTC, it is not rare at all...

Since we don't agree on Bitcoin, might as well pick a topic we agree on: Musical taste. Here's a video of a fun rhythm to play from one of Steve's guitarists:

Cool song!, i may cover that soon :D

Greetings-I thought this was a great video. I have watched other videos on the channel and felt like this one stood out a little more to me. I love your sentiment on BTC because I feel like we are one (albeit small) step closer to critical mass, which is good or bad based on ones opinion. To your point my friends and family have begun to ask me about investing in crypto which I have mixed feelings about because they are not interested in the underlying technology but rather simply want to make a quick and easy profit.

Speaking specifically about BTC I echo the comment from li0 below regarding the extremely high tx fees as well as time it takes to complete a tx. I saw one recently where it cost $81k in fees to spend $24! Additionally, I wanted your take on the following. Do you feel that people are investing in BTC because they are investing in a 'brand' rather than the other benefits of the coin? IMO popular demand is continuing to drive the price up and we continue to see these small bubbles pop only to continue to build back up. In the future I can potentially see a flip between BCH and BTC in terms of price and practical use as people wise up on the real practicality of the using BTC as a viable currency. Thoughts?

Looking forward to continuing to contribute!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

"They[Andreas & Vitalik] are focused on how to change the world – not how to make money."

I love these guys but what we need more than ever are not altruists to appeal to/assuage guilt-ridden consciences. What we need are people with the intelligence and the moral fortitude(the balls) to challenge/remove the basis for the assertion that we should feel guilty when it comes to raising standards of living for ourselves.

We can only raise standards of living by ridding the world of fiat(today's national) currencies. Or by introducing real, free-market money, in such a way that it becomes widely adopted across the world so quickly that the purveyors of fiat cannot leverage their existing hold over the guilt-ridden conscience to continue to prop up their parasitic monetary system.

As soon as real money starts to makes an entrance, it threatens the existing monopoly in money (money was once an industry). When their monopoly is threatened we should expect for them to double-, triple- and quadruple-down on assertions of how dangerous (freed) markets would be i.e. without their paternalistic presence as moral paragons of virtue, justified in threatening force due to the inherent degradation of human beings, who are not able to learn from our mistakes (in who to trade with and who not to).

No surprises who we would be free not to trade with, were we to return to purely voluntary trade and freely choose-able money.