The Prometheus League
Breaking News and Updates
- Abolition Of Work
- Ai
- Alt-right
- Alternative Medicine
- Antifa
- Artificial General Intelligence
- Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Super Intelligence
- Ascension
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- Atheist
- Atlas Shrugged
- Automation
- Ayn Rand
- Bahamas
- Bankruptcy
- Basic Income Guarantee
- Big Tech
- Bitcoin
- Black Lives Matter
- Blackjack
- Boca Chica Texas
- Brexit
- Caribbean
- Casino
- Casino Affiliate
- Cbd Oil
- Censorship
- Cf
- Chess Engines
- Childfree
- Cloning
- Cloud Computing
- Conscious Evolution
- Corona Virus
- Cosmic Heaven
- Covid-19
- Cryonics
- Cryptocurrency
- Cyberpunk
- Darwinism
- Democrat
- Designer Babies
- DNA
- Donald Trump
- Eczema
- Elon Musk
- Entheogens
- Ethical Egoism
- Eugenic Concepts
- Eugenics
- Euthanasia
- Evolution
- Extropian
- Extropianism
- Extropy
- Fake News
- Federalism
- Federalist
- Fifth Amendment
- Fifth Amendment
- Financial Independence
- First Amendment
- Fiscal Freedom
- Food Supplements
- Fourth Amendment
- Fourth Amendment
- Free Speech
- Freedom
- Freedom of Speech
- Futurism
- Futurist
- Gambling
- Gene Medicine
- Genetic Engineering
- Genome
- Germ Warfare
- Golden Rule
- Government Oppression
- Hedonism
- High Seas
- History
- Hubble Telescope
- Human Genetic Engineering
- Human Genetics
- Human Immortality
- Human Longevity
- Illuminati
- Immortality
- Immortality Medicine
- Intentional Communities
- Jacinda Ardern
- Jitsi
- Jordan Peterson
- Las Vegas
- Liberal
- Libertarian
- Libertarianism
- Liberty
- Life Extension
- Macau
- Marie Byrd Land
- Mars
- Mars Colonization
- Mars Colony
- Memetics
- Micronations
- Mind Uploading
- Minerva Reefs
- Modern Satanism
- Moon Colonization
- Nanotech
- National Vanguard
- NATO
- Neo-eugenics
- Neurohacking
- Neurotechnology
- New Utopia
- New Zealand
- Nihilism
- Nootropics
- NSA
- Oceania
- Offshore
- Olympics
- Online Casino
- Online Gambling
- Pantheism
- Personal Empowerment
- Poker
- Political Correctness
- Politically Incorrect
- Polygamy
- Populism
- Post Human
- Post Humanism
- Posthuman
- Posthumanism
- Private Islands
- Progress
- Proud Boys
- Psoriasis
- Psychedelics
- Putin
- Quantum Computing
- Quantum Physics
- Rationalism
- Republican
- Resource Based Economy
- Robotics
- Rockall
- Ron Paul
- Roulette
- Russia
- Sealand
- Seasteading
- Second Amendment
- Second Amendment
- Seychelles
- Singularitarianism
- Singularity
- Socio-economic Collapse
- Space Exploration
- Space Station
- Space Travel
- Spacex
- Sports Betting
- Sportsbook
- Superintelligence
- Survivalism
- Talmud
- Technology
- Teilhard De Charden
- Terraforming Mars
- The Singularity
- Tms
- Tor Browser
- Trance
- Transhuman
- Transhuman News
- Transhumanism
- Transhumanist
- Transtopian
- Transtopianism
- Ukraine
- Uncategorized
- Vaping
- Victimless Crimes
- Virtual Reality
- Wage Slavery
- War On Drugs
- Waveland
- Ww3
- Yahoo
- Zeitgeist Movement
-
Prometheism
-
Forbidden Fruit
-
The Evolutionary Perspective
Daily Archives: July 17, 2022
Bitcoin Is Down, But Its Case Has Never Been More Compelling – Bitcoin Magazine
Posted: July 17, 2022 at 9:13 am
This is an opinion editorial by Andrea Bianconi, a research assistant at the Idaho Freedom Foundation, which is a public policy think tank.
An analysis of the fundamentals, recent geopolitical and macroeconomic events and their impact on Bitcoins future.
In the last few months, financial markets have lost over 30% from their highs as the Federal Reserve Board took away the punchbowl from the intoxicated market players by hiking interest rates, and now recession (stagflation) seemingly looms.
The yen and the euro are inflating like developing countries currencies.
Inflation and commodities explode higher.
The spark for WWIII has been lit in Ukraine unbeknownst to the ignorant and brainwashed masses who think that this is just a local conflict and that peace can be reached in spite of Western nations selling unlimited quantities of weapons into the war and pouring billions of "freshly printed" U.S. dollars and euro debt into the conflict, adding fuel to the fire.
Then we have the suicidal sanctions, which are destroying the economies of the Western sanctioning countries rather than the sanctioned Russia.
After all, it is clear to anyone with a functioning brain that 10 years of sanctions have made Russia totally decoupled and immune from Western economical warfare.
And finally, the icing on the cake, bitcoin has died for the 459th time in its short 12-year history.
As I have expected and warned about in this February 2021 article, the growing financialization of the industry could become an existential threat for Bitcoin. Wall Street has brought its usual playbook excessive debt and leverage to their darling DeFi cryptocurrency sector drawing a crowd of suckers and shitcoiners who were allowed to leverage their bitcoin equity 100x or more to speculate on altcoins like LUNA. The leveraging and deleveraging process is well described in this ZeroHedge article here. All this is good until, sooner or later, reality hits. Shitcoins are invariably revealed for what they ultimately are, usually scams, and the only real asset posted as collateral (bitcoin) is then sold to cover the losses. Then the deleveraging causes a cascading liquidation of collateralized bitcoins. The suckers are wiped out and the smart money buys back the bitcoin on the cheap.
While one of the biggest purposes of Bitcoin is to be your own bank, DeFi rather aims at recreating the fiat fractional banking system with all its risks and hazards. This Bitcoin Magazine article correctly points out: Crypto lending shops such as Celsius are fractional reserve banks in principle; however this time there is no lender of last resort in the form of a central bank to bail out the founders and their clients when things turn sour.
Lets make one thing clear: a yield always has to come from somewhere. To generate a positive yield on a scarce asset such as bitcoin, the institution offering said yield has to leverage the clients deposits in various ways. And whereas banks face strong regulatory requirements as to what they can do with the customer deposits (such as buy treasuries, facilitate mortgage loans etc.), cryptocurrency lending companies face no such regulatory requirements, so they basically go and put their customers deposits into casinos of various kinds DeFi yield farming, staking, speculating on obscure altcoins."
While this wash-and-rinse cycle is nothing new for seasoned Bitcoiners and one can reasonably argue that it is needed to clean up the market from excesses I feel that there is one new, worrying and more obscure side to it this time.
As I wrote in this series of articles Part 1 here and Part 2 here, Bitcoin represents the wrench thrown in the engine of the globalist agenda: global money, global government and consequent global enslavement. As there is no practical way to stop Bitcoin adoption (since it is a fully decentralized, immutable, uncensorable peer-to-peer settlement asset and parallel payment system with cash-like finality), the only way is to try to demonize it. This is done using the usual FUD and mainstream media scare tactic campaigns and arguably more effectively by causing its price to drop substantially thanks to smartly engineered attacks on highly leveraged shitcoins where bitcoin is used as collateral.
The Terra/LUNA collapse is an example. We do not know for sure whose fiat fake money was behind the attack. Both Blackrock and Citadel among the most influential Davos players in advancing the globalist agenda were rumored to have played a key role in the attack, however they officially denied involvement. The thought remains, though, in order to borrow 100,000 bitcoin worth approximately $3 billion to pull off the attack you must be a big player or at least have someone with big pockets to back you up. It will be almost impossible to learn where the money came from.
Until the current fiat-based system which grants to the few close enough to the spigots of fake money the great privilege to fight wars, colonize and enslave others at no cost collapses, then the massive amount of fiat-based debt created ex nihilo will be always used by the privileged few to expropriate real assets like gold or bitcoin. This is the main reason why one should keep direct custody of his/her bitcoin and not play the corrupted fiat game with DeFi and shitcoins.
Alternative cryptocurrencies and DeFi in the end are nothing but the latest casino playground for Wall Street. The problems are well-known: excessive leverage, derivatives, derivatives of derivatives in an endless chain of liabilities, contagion and spiraling insolvencies when things turn sour. Theres one big difference though: in cryptocurrency and DeFi there is no Fed to bail risk-takers out. Unfortunately bitcoin is the only solid cryptocurrency asset with no counterparty risk which can be used as collateral in the sector. Therefore bitcoin will always be subject to extreme volatility in case of insolvencies in the sector. This is not the first time nor the last it will happen.
Ultimately, DeFis artificial yield game will play against ones bitcoin stash. Every bitcoin which is left in third-party custody or rather pledged as collateral, will be used against its ultimate owner. It will be lent out or collateralized in a spiraling game of leverage with shitcoins and un-stablecoins. When prices go down this triggers margin calls and the liquidation of the only real asset pledged as collateral in a cascading effect of ever-increasing margin calls and liquidations to cover the losses. In the end one will lose both the speculative altcoin position and the collateralized bitcoins. By using the structural weaknesses of fragile protocols like Terra/LUNA, smart players can trigger margin calls and liquidations thereby gaining both from shorting the shitcoin, betting safely against bitcoin on the futures market (they are causing the price drop so it is a safe bet) and then closing the positions by buying the suckers bitcoin on the cheap. They can further double the bet by going long on the futures market as well. An easy and safe bet given enough firepower. And traditional finance has plenty of firepower thanks to the leveraged debt-based fiat system. Unless of course, Bitcoiners finally wake up and stop playing in DeFis casino and stop collateralizing their bitcoin.
Truth is, like most of bitcoins pullbacks before, this one too has very little to do with Bitcoin itself.
The protocol is stronger than ever. The following charts will give you an idea of the exponential growth of the network.
Figure 1 Hash Rate
The growth of the Lightning Network which is a real proxy for Bitcoins adoption mainly in the East and global South has been impressive. Here is the chart:
Figure 2 Lightning
Lightning can handle 1 million transactions per second, while Visa handles 24,000 per second. The network has been increasing its capacity and is currently handling approximately 4,000 BTC on public channels.
Kraken, a major cryptocurrency exchange, has now added Lightning to its standard payment options and it has released an intelligence report showing very interesting data on Lightning growth and adoption.
According to the Kraken Report "Lightning usage has been on a steep upwards trajectory since late 2020, growing parabolically in September 2021 corresponding with the introduction of BTC as legal tender in El Salvador. Still, public metrics do not describe the full extent of Lightning adoption because of the number of users in the Lightning ecosystem utilizing private channels."
Figure 3 Lightning Nodes
Regarding the Lightning nodesgrowth (Figure 2), Kraken states "Furthermore, the growth in the sheer number of Lightning nodes indicates that the network is beginning to see many new participants. Nodes saw continuous growth from 2018 to late August 2020, rising from 54 to 6,134. However, node growth has since gone parabolic, rising over 176% to 16,940 nodes at the time of writing. Lightning node growth has proliferated so fast that there are now roughly 1,000 more Lightning nodes than Bitcoin nodes. Should adoption continue to grow at this rate, the Lightning network could realize BTCs potential as a medium of exchange asset an essential feature for global money that was previously a bottleneck for BTC going mainstream."
Among developing countries El Salvador has been leading the path towards Bitcoin adoption. While I have been and remain critical of the risky strategy adopted by the country, I grant that President Bukele has taken a revolutionary step, and a historical one for a nation-state. Therefore, El Salvadors success remains fundamental for Bitcoins future adoption among developing countries. So far El Salvadors results are encouraging.
In this interview President Bukele states that a large portion of the previously unbanked population may now financially transact with bitcoin. President Bukele stated, If it works, why would any other country not want to do the same thing? Imagine a country like El Salvador, which had 75% of people unbanked. Imagine in a year from now, that's down to 10%. We have been trying for, I don't know, 30 years to bank our people, and it has been impossible, because they don't trust the banks, because the banks don't want to give service to them, because the services are too expensive, whatever.
More importantly though, Salvadoran citizens will save over $400 million per year in fees from direct remittances from expatriates abroad. This is over 2.5% of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP). This was a major factor in making the decision to adopt Bitcoin. And this number can only increase since the cost of remittances through intermediaries which currently stands between 5% to over 20% will go down to practically zero. So if you are a Salvadoran expatriate and you currently try to limit remittances, you pool them in the largest possible transactions to reduce the impact of the fees. If you now have substantially zero fees using bitcoin via the Lightning channel then you could remit even a small amount whenever you have the chance.
No doubt many developing countries are looking at El Salvadors experience and are preparing to follow in its steps.
Sound money has ruled human monetary history while an unconstrained fiat money standard has been the peculiar case of only the last 50 years. While the topic of sound money and fiat money in monetary history is not the purpose of this article, I still need to make an important point.
Money has been primarily a technological issue. Technology has always dictated the transition from a less technological form of money to a superior one. Think about the transition from primitive forms of money to gold and silver thanks to the invention of coinage and the standardization of weight in ancient Greece (for a good history of money read Dr. Saifedean Ammous "The Bitcoin Standard"). The fundamental reason why gold was abandoned as money was because it could not be moved through space and time at the same speed of information and commerce as new technologies appeared. Historically, the banking sector was born to arbitrage the opportunity created by technological developments by initially substituting golds cumbersome circulation with convenient to use paper IOUs fully backed by gold reserves held at the bank. The next step was to move to a fractional reserve system partially backed by gold and, once enough trust was built into the fractional fiat system, the fractional reserve asset was completely abandoned to conveniently install an unbacked fiat currency system based solely on paper claims, which gifted the elites with the riches and privileges granted by the Cantillon effect: a five=decade sleight of hand which is coming, one way or another, to an end.
So it was technological progress and the laws of physics which rendered gold obsolete and impractical as a bearer asset for financial/business transactions in modern times. Gold could only serve as a reserve asset. This was the true reason for its demise as a bearer settlement asset first and for its full demonetization later.
Bitcoins revolutionary technology completely changes that paradigm.
Nowadays there is no opportunity to arbitrage time and space in financial transactions by offering soft/unsound money solely because it moves faster than hard money. Bitcoin fills that gap.
Not only can nowadays bitcoin travel faster than fiat money, but it also has the additional advantages as a bearer settlement asset to have cash-like immediate finality, more security, total immutability and absolute scarcity
Bingo.
Therefore, as far as technology is concerned, Bitcoin is a superior form of money compared to anything humanity has ever experienced so far. 12 years after its creation still nothing compares to Bitcoin, full stop.
While it remains impossible to forecast what the course of its adoption and its monetization process will be in the future because that will depend on too many variables Bitcoin is there for everyone to use, to experiment with and there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
All the FUD thrown at Bitcoin has been entirely debunked in its 12 year history. However there is always something new coming up. Regardless of the reasons behind it, this is after all a worthwhile exercise since it enables the community to focus on critical aspects, analyze them and propose solutions. If the critics are reasonably motivated the effect can only be positive. The latest addition to the FUD narrative has been Bitcoins energy use. The topic is not new and it has been very effectively and rationally discussed on many occasions. The Bitcoin Mining Council, in particular, has done a great job in responding to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys misperceptions about Bitcoin mining. Here you can find the Councils response letter to the EPA.
In addition, a number of competent authors have done a great job in analyzing the real aspects of Bitcoins energy use and its complexities. Among them Nic Carter is certainly one of the most prolific and competent. Here you can find all his interesting articles on the topic. The critics, even if largely instrumental in the demonization of Bitcoin, had the positive effect of fostering a change in mining operations towards the use of residual energy sources which would be lost in any case or would negatively impact the environment like gas flaring/venting in oil fields or using landfill methane and the stabilization of energy grids in critical instances. Very important developments which the MSM has totally disregarded, obviously.
Therefore, going forward despite the debunking and the rapid progress of Bitcoins alternative mining one should only expect that the pressure applied using the energy consumption FUD narrative will continue to increase in the future.
The reason is that climate change has been erected by the World Economic Forums Davos 2022 conference as their foundational narrative to justify all sorts of restrictions on human activity. From praising the virtues of the destructive for both the economies and the health of human beings COVID-19 lockdowns to the U.N. praising the virtues of famine, to the banning of Bitcoin mining or unhosted wallets. Therefore the fight against this new type of FUD will be much more difficult. Simply debunking their arguments with real data, statistics and counter arguments will have little impact against the massive firepower at their disposal in terms of money and the support this money buys from the corrupted mainstream media.
But in the medium-long term the green energy transition narrative forced by Davos 2022 will ultimately play in favor of Bitcoin.
Energy markets expert Dr. Anas F. Alhajji points out in this interesting MacroVoices interview that a major global energy crisis is inevitable. That crisis is essentially created by our political leaders policy, which is forcing away key investments in the oil and gas sector before the alternative replacement had realistically been phased in.
Simply put, only an insane person will stop investing in a fundamental resource which keeps the whole economy and societal life running until a reliable replacement has been found. Unless of course the consequent massive energy crisis and the double-digit inflation which will be arising from that insane policy is exactly what they want and what they need. Indeed, in addition to benefiting from directing hundreds of billions of freshly printed fiat currencies into the pockets of their own ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) players, "what they want and what they need" is to fulfill a complex agenda whose ultimate and true objective is NOT the "green transition" but the transition to a new monetary system to save their old privileges: a monetary reset.
That is a key point to be noted.
What is going on does not happen by chance. Nor it is simply the result of the politicians incompetence. My belief is that it is a deliberate policy choice, and the agenda includes (i) inflating the excessive debt away, (ii) the unavoidable (high) inflation of the national currencies will be used as the excuse to transition into a new monetary system based on CBDCs. Western populations - while impoverished and annihilated by monetary inflation - will be easily made dependent on governmental subsidies, and they will easily accept free digital currencies in their wallets to survive at the expense of their freedoms; and (iii) this will consequently achieve the final objective of installing a global government, a global money and the global enslavement of populations.
Adding to this point, macroeconomic advisor Luke Gromen, points out in this MacroVoices interview: The ECB can never raise rates high enough to reduce energy input inflation without blowing up the debt, when they're cutting back their energy inputs from the Russians. And so, what's the response you get? Well, you see it in the U.K., we're gonna start handing out 400 pounds to everybody because energy costs have gone up, are you insane? They are literally setting up an energy hyperinflation death spiral with their currencies, which, if I'm looking at it from a very Machiavellian point of view, there's I think probably certain interests in Washington that would love to see that happen. Watch the Eurozone implode and get those German surpluses recycled back into buying Treasurys instead of financing, you know, Southern European deficits.
As I write, the euro is down to parity against the dollar and is breaking below parity against the Swiss franc levels not seen since exactly 20 years ago in 2002.
So if it is inflation that they want on one side of the ocean, Luke Gromen adds that it is not different on the other side of it: The balance sheet of the United States is our leading indicator, and it tells you that we are going to get inflation for a long time to come. And just by way of context, the 8% CPI inflation we saw in 2021. It took our deficit from 129% of GDP to 122% of GDP. You have to have inflation run higher than your interest coupon for an extended period of time. So we need double-digit inflation for probably five years.
Summing up, an artificially created global energy crisis is in the making and double-digit inflation is very likely to persist for a very long time because in the end this is what Western governments need to destroy their excessive debt.
To further make the point there is also a concurrent artificially created global food crisis in the making which despite the West blaming of Russia clearly has nothing to do with the war. This food crisis has been set up by a few global players who have cornered the food commodities market. Again, those few players are also part of the Davos elite and owned by the usual suspects who profit from their oligopolistic market position. A handful of global funds which basically own all the global companies: Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, Bill Gates Foundations, George Soros, etc.
Regardless of the causes though, the highly inflationary macroeconomic background which is shaping up will be net positive for Bitcoin for two reasons:
(i) while Davos-sponsored ESG and green energy transition projects will fail miserably simply because there is currently not yet a viable timely alternative to fossil fuels and this will soon force governments to either go back to more polluting alternatives like coal (already happening in the green EU) or simply collapse Bitcoin miners are extremely flexible to respond to market signs and incentives. If oil and gas prices go through the roof then they will switch to untapped renewable sources, since you can mine bitcoin in the middle of the desert with solar panels well away from energy grids.
(ii) The response by governments to the energy crisis will be to print more money to hand out subsidies to the impoverished citizens. This creates a highly inflationary environment which is bullish for Bitcoin, the ultimate scarce asset.
The Western indiscriminate sanctions on Russia with the unlawful and arbitrary expropriation of Russian assets, both private and state-owned together with the weaponization of the dollar and its payment rails (SWIFT), have shown to the global South and the East of the world that the Western democracies are a joke and their monetary system is terminally ill. They may be looking for alternatives to transact business without using the dollar and its payment rails. The entire world has learned from Russias hard lesson what each Bitcoiner learns first the equivalent of not your keys not your bitcoin. U.S. Treasurys are not a safe asset to own if you do not conform to the issuers diktats. Nor is it safe to hold reserves in the dollar or euro currencies or entrust gold reserves with a Western central bank. All can be seized and expropriated on a whim. This is the lesson that all the independent (or willing to be) countries in the world have learned from recent events. And the lessons wont be forgotten anytime soon.
So, while the West has committed economic and monetary suicide, the rational bet can only be bullish bitcoin, regardless of its short-term volatility caused by the deleveraging in the cryptocurrency space.
Why the West collectively commits economic suicide though is a much more complex question to answer. While this is commonly blamed on the Western politicians incompetence (which is also a factor), the truthful explanation lies with the role that the Davos globalist elite plays in directing those politicians who have been co-opted within their powerful network. The Davos elite are the puppeteers and the Western politicians are their puppets.
For anyone familiar with how the lobbying system and the revolving doors work in advancing ones interest and agendas at political level, it should not take a lot of imagination to figure out what Davos-supported politicians would do to advance the agenda of their sponsors.
Among their ranks it is not only the Davos WEF which plays a key influential role in nurturing and shaping the young global leaders of the future, but also parallel, complex and interlocking networks like the Bilderberg Meetings, the Trilateral Commission, the Atlantic Council, the Fabian Society or the Soros Open Society.
Make no mistake, those sponsored politicians are not idiots (well some are ). They are very well paid actors and they are fulfilling their role splendidly. They are executors and they have to implement an agenda. The puppeteers and their puppets know what they are doing.
By expropriating Russias assets and by weaponizing the dollar they have killed the dollar, the U.S. Treasurys and the euro as reserve currencies and safe assets. This suicidal move of the U.S. administration cannot be explained if not with the prevalence within the U.S. government of non-American interest. Indeed, rather than American interest, the latest moves are beneficial to a global government and global money at the expense of the reserve status of the U.S. dollar.
Basically, both the U.S. administration and the EU, do not represent their citizens anymore rather, they represent the gang of Davos. Independent geopolitical analyst Tom Luongo shares the same view: that the American president, as a proxy for the oligarchs in Davos, is acting on their behalf to ultimately weaken the U.S.
All this, aims to create the crisis needed to transition to a new monetary system based on a supranational/global money which could well be the special drawing rights (SDR) reserve asset of the International Monetary Fund. Under that global money a new set of national digital currencies (in the form of CBDCs) could be used to guarantee their globalist puppet governments the very same old privileges which they enjoyed so far in an unconstrained fiat system: unlimited power to create digital fiat money and control how this is spent. Their vassals would continue to profit from the Cantillon effect at the expense of society and continue to expropriate real valuable assets in exchange for fiat digital worthless currencies. Wealth inequality will continue to increase.
Global enslavement could ensue for the ignorant masses globally.
Everything changes and nothing changes.
With some luck though, their plan now has two fierce adversaries. The first one they have themselves created and it is the unexpected and unwelcome result of their geopolitical crazy games. The other one has been there since 2009 but only more recently came into their crosshairs.
Russia and China, together with the rest of the global South and the East, have been forced in an inextricable alliance for survival and independence from the West. They have had enough and have stopped playing a game made by someone else with someone elses rules. The short-lived American unipolar global order born in 1989 after the fall of communism ends now, and a new multipolar order is born. Again, this new multipolar order and the consequent deglobalization, should be a thriving environment for Bitcoin, the embodiment of decentralization. Since gold and bitcoin are the only existing assets with no counterparty risk they might even play a role in the coming monetary reset. They might be part of the basket of currencies and/or commodities chosen to back up the SDR or whatever else is chosen. In this article I have postulated the reasons why a monetary reset might mean $18,000 gold and $650,000 bitcoin.
More likely though governments will not use bitcoin but only gold in a monetary reset. After all this is the real asset that the biggest central banks own. Bitcoin then will become the preferred reserve asset for all non-sovereign institutions and also small developing nations which have little gold reserves. In this scenario, the Bitcoin standard will be likely adopted by the legacy financial sector, commercial banks (which can use bitcoin as a reserve asset to offer a new wave of commercial free banking services), corporations and individuals. Basically, the world might be using two monetary systems mutually integrated: an upper tier - for governments and central banks - running with SDR as the global world currency fractionally backed up by gold reserves; and a lower tier for small sovereigns, banks and individuals running on national fiat currencies and bitcoin as a reserve asset, frictionless moving between fiat currencies for expenditures and bitcoin for savings. This would be the ideal solution."
At least this is what I hope. Anything short of that will mean a dark future for humanity.
Despite the recent price pullback, Bitcoins fundamentals and its investment case are stronger than ever. Never before has the protocol been more secure. It continues to grow and adoption is on the rise especially in developing countries, where Bitcoin represents a lifesaver for millions of people. As we have seen, even the most recent geopolitical events paint a bullish case for Bitcoin. That background though is fluid, complex and with so many variables, it is impossible to forecast what the outcomes will be.
The war in the heart of Europe, the high risk of an escalation outside of Ukraines borders, the high inflation and a global crisis building up in the energy, commodities and food sectors and the Western currencies inflating after years of monetary madness to fund consumerism and asset bubbles rather than productive investment: All this should in my opinion compellingly direct investors towards the ONLY asset which acts as protection against such complex and worrisome background thanks to its unique features. Bitcoin achieves absolute scarcity, true decentralization, censorship resistance, immutability, the highest protocol security, unlimited portability, relative anonymity and unique cash-like finality to settle peer-to-peer transactions in a parallel financial system. But this is the first time in history that we are at such a complex juncture with Bitcoin so we will have to see what happens next.
Then we have the Davos variable.
The powerful financial elite and the new tech oligarchs own also the largest mainstream media channels and publications and basically all the leading global corporations in an intricate web of money, power and vested interest which is unprecedented in recent modern history. For years they have also funded, formed, nurtured, sponsored and shaped the minds of their career bureaucrats and political puppets and have installed them in key posts to take care of their interests. As they are pulling the strings to fight those non-aligned governments - which thrive for independence and do not want to bow to their new global order in the geopolitical arena - you should also expect that they will fight Bitcoin tooth and nail, since Bitcoin is THE tool which enables true independence, self-sovereignty and decentralization.
It is a fight between two powerful forces. The one pushes towards an authoritarian globalist regime based on the central banks control of new digital money, the abuse of surveillance tech and the control of big data. The other is a fully decentralized asymmetrical technology which empowers the majority of the people over elitist central entities thanks to the unique combination of cryptography, encryption, difficulty adjustment and POW (proof-of-work - this is why POW is needed and the whole debate about POW and proof-of-stake for Bitcoin is preposterous).
It is a battle between a top-down authoritarian power and a bottom-up tech market-based revolution which can bring about the very much needed separation of State and money.
One is the dark Middle Ages, the other is the early American dream and the Western frontier free spirit.
Someone said that being decentralized does not mean being disorganized. I agree. It is probably high time for Bitcoiners to come together in an organization similar to the Bitcoin Mining Council, at least to study the scenarios and the background that I have mentioned in this article and somehow elaborate some countertactics. At least debating over such topics will also bring ideas.
Count me in.
As for the rest, Bitcoin remains the wrench thrown in the evil globalist engine. It will no doubt continue to do its work against evil and for the free world provided we let it do what it has been programmed to do.
Being a Bitcoiner means always holding your keys, having a low time preference and
investing for the future to be a free man.
This is a guest post by Andrea Bianconi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
Read the original:
Bitcoin Is Down, But Its Case Has Never Been More Compelling - Bitcoin Magazine
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Bitcoin Is Down, But Its Case Has Never Been More Compelling – Bitcoin Magazine
Will Bitcoin Hit $100,000 in 2024? – The Motley Fool
Posted: at 9:13 am
In just 13 years, Bitcoin (BTC 1.64%) went from trading for just a few pennies to nearly $69,000 at the peak. Even though the world's original cryptocurrency is only worth about $21,000 today, many are optimistic that Bitcoin will rebound.
These hopeful price predictions use varying methods and different reasoning for their estimates. For this evaluation of Bitcoin's future price, we will focus on the patterns between halving events and use the year 2024 as the deadline, since that is when the next Bitcoin halving should occur.
Halving events are what helps make Bitcoin so unique. Bitcoin's code is programmed to ensure that the growth in supply falls with time. Since Bitcoin's code is open source, we can do a little math and find out that Bitcoin's block reward is cut in half every 210,000 blocks -- or roughly every four years.
The halving events serve as an easy marker to track the progression of Bitcoin's price. Bitcoin analysts refer to the time between each halving as a cycle.
Bitcoin's first halving was in November 2012 and dropped the block reward from 50 Bitcoins to 25. The second was in the summer of 2016. And the most recent was in May 2020, resulting in the reward being cut from 12.5 to 6.25 Bitcoins.
When looking at the data between halvings, a few things become evident. First, the price at each halving is roughly 55% less than the all-time high from the previous cycle.
Before Bitcoin's first halving, the price topped out near $34 in June 2011. By the time of the November 2012 halving, Bitcoin was worth just about $12 -- a drop of just over 60%. At the 2016 halving, Bitcoin was worth around $650. This was about a 45% decrease from Bitcoin's previous all-time high of around $1,200 in November 2013.
A similar situation occurred at the halving in May 2020. Back then, Bitcoin was worth about $8,800 -- nearly 65% less than the December 2017 all-time high. When averaging those decreases, we discover that on average, Bitcoin's price is about 55% less than the previous all-time high when the halving occurs.
The next halving is set to take place about May 2024. Simple math can help us arrive at a possible price that Bitcoin will reach by then. In the current cycle Bitcoin peaked at almost $69,000 in November 2021 -- based on past behavior, Bitcoin's price should be about 55% less than that. This implies a price of about $30,000 if past patterns continue at the time of the next halving.
Another insight we can gather from data is that the amount Bitcoin increases in between each halving diminishes from the previous cycle.
Bitcoin was trading at about $11 at the time of the first halving in November 2012. It then peaked in December 2013 to about $1,100 -- an increase of almost 10,000%. From the next halving in July 2016, Bitcoin's price rose from around $650 to a new high in December 2017 of just under $20,000 -- almost a 3,000% gain. From the most recent halving in May 2020, when it was trading for about $9,000 to the all-time high of just under $69,000 in November 2021, Bitcoin increased about 670%.
It becomes further evident that Bitcoin's returns diminish with each halving cycle that passes. But how much will the price increase after the next halving?
On average, Bitcoin returns about 25% less with each new cycle. Subtracting a quarter from the previous 670% return, we arrive at about a 500% increase. A gain of this size from our speculative $30,000 price in May 2024 price would imply a new all-time high of almost $150,000.
We could speculate on Bitcoin's price until the last Bitcoin is mined sometime after 2100. Regardless of what the actual price becomes, there is one clear trend that has held true: Those who hold Bitcoin longer are rewarded with better returns as each halving passes.
Investors who bought Bitcoin after the May 2020 halving likely haven't seen great returns. To maximize potential returns, the data show us that Bitcoin should be held for at least one halving. Although recent weakness in Bitcoin caused every portfolio to take a hit, current prices should be viewed as an opportunity to increase exposure before the next halving in May 2024.
Continued here:
Will Bitcoin Hit $100,000 in 2024? - The Motley Fool
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Will Bitcoin Hit $100,000 in 2024? – The Motley Fool
Tron Boss Says Warren Buffett Still Holds Bitcoin. Is This the Case? – U.Today
Posted: at 9:13 am
Alex Dovbnya
Tron founder Justin Sun claims that Warren Buffett continues to hold his gifted crypto
Tron founder Justin Sun believes that legendary investor Warren Buffett continues to hold Bitcoin (BTC) and Tron (TRX).
In February 2020, the crypto entrepreneur finally got his $4.5 million charity dinner with the Oracle of Omaha.
Sun gifted Buffett a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 phone loaded with 1 Bitcoin and 1,930,830 TRX tokens, making one of the most influential investors a cryptocurrency holder. Some users noticed that the wallets containing gifted crypto had remained inactive.
However, after the dinner, Buffett told Sun that he gave the phone to the GLIDE Foundation. "I don't own any cryptocurrency. I never will," the Oracle of Omaha said. Hence, it is likely that the billionaire no longer has anything to do with the gifted crypto given that he has a strong distaste for cryptocurrencies.
The Berkshire Hathaway boss, the seventh richest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $97 billion, is known as one of the harshest cryptocurrency critics.
Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger predicted that the largest cryptocurrency would drop to as low as zero while calling Bitcoin evil.
Back in 2018, Buffett described Bitcoin as probably rat poison squared. The comment riled up the cryptocurrency community, making the Oracle of Omaha one of its biggest nemeses.
As reported by U.Today, Buffett dismissed the flagship cryptocurrency all the way back in 2014.
Read the original post:
Tron Boss Says Warren Buffett Still Holds Bitcoin. Is This the Case? - U.Today
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Tron Boss Says Warren Buffett Still Holds Bitcoin. Is This the Case? – U.Today
Have Bitcoin and Ethereum Bottomed Out? Top Trader Examines Path Forward for the Two Largest Crypto Assets – The Daily Hodl
Posted: at 9:13 am
A popular analyst is digging into the charts to set price targets for six crypto assets as the markets try to end the week on a bright note.
Pseudonymous crypto trader Altcoin Sherpa tells his 180,100 Twitter followers hes looking at the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) for Bitcoin (BTC) on four-hour candles to plot out both short-term highs and lows.
The crypto strategist also says that while Bitcoin has managed to establish a near-term range, he does not believe that the bear market bottom is in for BTC.
I think that the top of range makes sense at this point, eyeing $21,600 and $22,000 as of now.
Still doubtful this is the macro bottom but its a very strong tradeable event. Taking profits higher where the 200 EMA four-hour is.
Bitcoin is currently up by 1.5% over the last 24 hours, changing hands for $20,693.
Moving on to leading smart contract platform Ethereum (ETH), Altcoin Sherpa again utilizes the 200-day EMA metric to establish a price fluctuation zone of $1,013 to $1,283 while cautioning that ETH could fall to as low as $850 before the next big rally.
Idea [ETH] goes to the highs/hits resistance at 200 EMA four-hour and then back to the lows.
Could even go as low as $850 before springing higher. NOT the bottom yet though [in my opinion].
Ethereum is up by 2.33% on the day, priced at $1,217.
Regarding enterprise-grade blockchain platform Fantom (FTM), the crypto analyst doesnt have high hopes but thinks FTM could at least reach the mid-point of its current trading range.
I havent looked at this shitcoin in a while. I wouldnt be surprised to see this grind up to the [equilibrium] of the range around $0.32.
Its still super bearish though overall.
At time of writing, Fantom is valued at $0.25.
Next on the analysts radar is Ethereum competitor Solana (SOL). He says hes planning to fully exit his positions if SOL can work its way up to $42.
Im 1/3rd out of this position, took this one and entered at $34.
I think this can make its way to the top of the range at $42, where Ill be mostly all out at that time.
Solana is rallying nicely off its weekly lows in the $32 range and is currently trading at $37.01.
As for cross-chain interoperability protocol Polkadot (DOT), Altcoin Sherpa believes the bottom still isnt in despite DOT pushing steadily downward since April.
I dont think this is accumulation quite yet but this is always really hard to see in real time. Chop around here another few weeks and I could maybe see it being the bottom.
Until then, Im going to assume $5 is coming.
Polkadot is currently changing hands for $6.74.
Last on the traders list is lending and borrowing protocol Aave (AAVE), which he predicts is due for a significant leg down before any rally could take place.
I think that the cluster of EMAs could be a decent entry around the mid-$70s ($75ish) if youre playing the lower timeframes.
It looks bullish on the four-hour but still pretty bearish on the one-day/higher timeframes.
Id probably look to short low-$100s if/when it gets there.
Currently, Aave is down over 4% on the day with a price of $88.85.
Featured Image: Shutterstock/klyaksun
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Have Bitcoin and Ethereum Bottomed Out? Top Trader Examines Path Forward for the Two Largest Crypto Assets – The Daily Hodl
India Calls on G20 to Bring Crypto Within Global ‘Automatic Exchange of Information’ Framework Regulation Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
Posted: at 9:13 am
Indias finance minister has called on the G20 countries to bring crypto within the Automatic Exchange of Information framework. More than 100 countries have adopted the Common Reporting Standard under the framework.
Indias finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, talked about cryptocurrency Friday during the G20 Ministerial Symposium on Tax and Development in Bali, Indonesia.
Noting that tax transparency is an area where considerable progress has been made with the Automatic Exchange of Information in respect of financial accounts, she described: Our investigations have shown that numerous layers of entities are often set up by tax evaders to conceal their unaccounted assets.
Sitharaman added that although the Automatic Exchange of Information framework provides for financial account information to various jurisdictions, tax evaders, being smart, explore other avenues to shift their unaccounted wealth through investment in non-financial assets. Emphasizing that this area is a point of action for the G20, the finance minister detailed:
While the development of the crypto asset reporting framework is underway, I call upon the G20 to examine the feasibility of an Automatic Exchange of Information in respect of other non-financial assets beyond those covered under the CRS like immovable properties as well.
The Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) aims to reduce global tax evasion. The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an information standard for the AEOI. It was developed in response to a G20 request and approved by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council in July 2014.
The CRS calls on jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions and automatically exchange that information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis, the OECD described.
The Indian finance minister continued: Over 100 countries have committed to exchanging financial account information under the Common Reporting Standards.
However, she pointed out that some jurisdictions have yet to commence exchanges of information under this framework. They will have to be brought in Therein lies one work agenda for G20, Sitharaman stressed. She opined:
I would think it is for the G20 to play the role of a catalyst in encouraging these jurisdictions to become part of the Automatic Exchange of Information and this mechanism because it can strengthen global efforts against offshore tax evasion and avoidance.
Do you think crypto should be included in the Automatic Exchange of Information framework? Let us know in the comments section below.
A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on India Calls on G20 to Bring Crypto Within Global ‘Automatic Exchange of Information’ Framework Regulation Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
Here’s Bitcoin’s Only Path to $300,000 – The Motley Fool
Posted: at 9:13 am
As the S&P 500 just had its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, the cryptocurrency market has also fallen off a cliff. After approaching a total value of nearly $3 trillion last November, the entire market is now worth just $888 billion as of this writing. Amid the bear market, investors are fearing a recession is on the horizon, causing them to sell off risky assets.
The world's most valuable cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC 1.78%), has also cratered. However, I think there's a good chance that it eventually bounces back. Its price (on the afternoon of July 12) was $19,907 down from an all-time high of $68,790, but there's a clear path for it to one day reach $300,000. And that would equate to a monster 15-fold return.
Launched in January 2009, Bitcoin's creation was truly revolutionary. A borderless, peer-to-peer internet-based currency completely upends the traditional monetary and financial system, one that is controlled by governments. While the idea was sound and made sense, Bitcoin's actual adoption in commerce has been unimpressive.
According to Cryptwerk, Bitcoin today is directly accepted as a method of payment at 7,879 different merchants. And although there are a number of different financial services that allow users to spend with Bitcoin, like Coinbase'sVisadebit card and PayPal'sCheckout with Crypto feature, consumers aren't really incentivized to do this.
Why use Bitcoin, an appreciating asset that triggers a tax liability when sold, to pay for things? You're much better off buying and holding this digital asset. Spending fiat, or government-issued currency, on the other hand, is what has worked because it is constantly being inflated by massive stimulative measures. Maybe this situation changes in the future, but right now, I don't see how Bitcoin can become an effective medium of exchange.
Many Bitcoin bulls want the top cryptocurrency to become a true medium of exchange, but in its 13-year history, this use case hasn't caught on. Instead, Bitcoin's most promising use case is that it continues to become more popular as a legitimate store of value, or digital gold.
Despite the recent market drawdown, both individual and institutional investors are increasingly allocating small portions of their portfolios to Bitcoin. Whether it is viewed as an inflation hedge or simply as a way to diversify holdings, I believe that as familiarity and understanding of Bitcoin continue to rise over time, more people will own it.
Compared to gold, Bitcoin has some key advantages. Bitcoin is absolutely finite, as there will ever only be 21 million coins created. The supply of gold, on the other hand, can increase if the price of the precious metal rises enough to justify finding and opening new mines. As mentioned, Bitcoin can be used in transactions, a characteristic gold doesn't have. Furthermore, Bitcoin is divisible and a lot easier to store.
Bitcoin's market cap today of $380 billion is roughly 3% of the $12.5 trillion of gold in the world. Even if Bitcoin one day represents 50% of the gold market, which isn't a huge stretch of the imagination, its market cap would be $6.3 trillion. And the price of one Bitcoin at that point easily eclipses $300,000. I have no clue as to the timeframe of this happening, but it appears to be Bitcoin's most likely path to significant price appreciation.
There is another exciting use case that Bitcoin could positively impact, and that's the market for global remittances. Workers in the U.S. sent $74.6 billion back home to family in other countries, with an average fee of 6% on a $200 transaction. With Bitcoin, the fee is essentially nonexistent. Furthermore, remittances seem to fit perfectly with Bitcoin's narrative of being a borderless global currency.
This is a major possibility of unlocking real economic value. The World Bank estimates that this year, $630 billion will be sent as remittances from economic powerhouse nations to low- and middle-income countries. Six percent of that massive amount equals $37.8 billion, a material sum that can immediately go from paying for fees to having a positive economic impact for those involved.
But as things stand today, Bitcoin's biggest hope is to find a place in a greater number of investment portfolios. And if it can become a reasonable substitute for owning gold, a $300,000 price target is an honest possibility over the long term.
Neil Patel has positions in Bitcoin and Coinbase Global, Inc. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Coinbase Global, Inc., PayPal Holdings, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Read more:
Here's Bitcoin's Only Path to $300,000 - The Motley Fool
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Here’s Bitcoin’s Only Path to $300,000 – The Motley Fool
Will Ethereum ever surpass Bitcoin? Crypto community answers – Cointelegraph
Posted: at 9:13 am
While Ethereum (ETH) being down almost 40% against Bitcoin (BTC) may give ETH traders some worries, crypto community members on Twitter shared their takes on the possibility of the smart contract platform eventually surpassing the king of crypto assets.
On Twitter, the Cointelegraph social team asked the crypto community to share their thoughts on whether Ethereum can eventually surpass Bitcoin. From predicting that it would happen in 2030 to a firm no, members of the community offered a variety of answers.
According to Jesus Crypto, theres a possibility of ETH overtaking BTC in 2030. While the Twitter user thinks that it will be very difficult, the upcoming shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) may play a part in having ETH take the throne ten years from now.
Calling Bitcoin a dinosaur, Twitter user WakeNBakeTrades also believes that Ethereum can surpass the top crypto with the help of Polygon's (MATIC) scaling. They tweeted that:
On the other hand, Rahul Singh argued that it will never happen, pointing out that BTC is digital gold while ETH is the second iteration of the internet. Singh noted that there are many differences between the value of digital assets and digital software. Twitter user CyberKingK agreed with the sentiment and tweeted:
Bob Shiby also weighed in on the topic saying that theres plenty of room for both. The Twitter user noted that they would hold out on deciding and wait for further developments in Bitcoin while recognizing that there are a lot of tokens relying on Ethereums uptime.
Related: Ethereum co-founder responds to PoS critics amid upcoming Merge
On Monday1, a decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher said that the change to PoS consensus through the coming Merge will create an economic structure that would allow ETH to overtake BTC. The researcher noted that with the shift, ETH inflation will go down, security will go up and the asset would cement itself as a digital bond.
Read the original post:
Will Ethereum ever surpass Bitcoin? Crypto community answers - Cointelegraph
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on Will Ethereum ever surpass Bitcoin? Crypto community answers – Cointelegraph
‘World War III Has Begun,’ Says Gerald Celente; Plus, Long-Term BTC Predictions and Scorching US Inflation Bitcoin.com News Week in Review The…
Posted: at 9:13 am
Trend forecaster Gerald Celente told Bitcoin.com News that World War III has begun, weighing in on Covid-19, crypto, the Great Reset, and gold in an exclusive interview. Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, talked long-term BTC investing, as scorching inflation in the U.S. continues to plague Americans, though Bidens White House says the latest numbers are out-of-date. All this and more in your bite-sized digest of this weeks hottest stories from Bitcoin.com News.
This week Bitcoin.com News spoke with Gerald Celente, the popular trends forecaster, and publisher of the Trends Journal. During a telephone conversation, Celente discussed the uncertainty surrounding the global economy after governments worldwide locked down the worlds citizens over the Covid-19 pandemic, shut down businesses and injected trillions into the economy.
The discussion touches upon gold, bitcoin, the pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war, and the Federal Reserve. The trends forecaster believes that World War III has already begun, and if people do not assemble to bolster peace in this world, then we the people are doomed. Celente stressed that if people want real change, they cannot rely on hope as they need to take a stand to make it happen themselves.
Read More
Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, says if you take a three, four, or five-year horizon, he would be shocked if you didnt make money investing in bitcoin because the underlying fundamentals are really strong.
Read More
Shark Tank star Kevin OLeary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has warned of an impending big panic event in the crypto space. I dont believe weve seen the bottom yet and I have a different view of it, he said.
Read More
According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, U.S. inflation remains scorching hot as it has risen at the fastest yearly rate since 1981. Junes CPI data reflected a 9.1% year-over-year increase, even though a number of bureaucrats and economists thought Mays CPI data would be the record peak.
Read More
What are your thoughts on this weeks hottest stories from Bitcoin.com News? Let us know in the comments section below.
Bitcoin.com is your premier source for everything Bitcoin-related. We can help you buy bitcoins and choose a bitcoin wallet. You can also read the latest news, or engage with the community on our Bitcoin Forum. Please keep in mind that this is a commercial website that lists wallets, exchanges and other Bitcoin-related companies.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
View original post here:
'World War III Has Begun,' Says Gerald Celente; Plus, Long-Term BTC Predictions and Scorching US Inflation Bitcoin.com News Week in Review The...
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on ‘World War III Has Begun,’ Says Gerald Celente; Plus, Long-Term BTC Predictions and Scorching US Inflation Bitcoin.com News Week in Review The…
BitMEX Explains Why Ethereum Has More Dapps Than Bitcoin – CryptoPotato
Posted: at 9:13 am
BitMEX Research recently published a report detailing why Ethereum has dwarfed Bitcoin as the center of Dapp and developer activity within crypto. While there are technical reasons for the discrepancy, the team claims that Bitcoin developer culture prior to Ethereums launch drove alternative use cases away from its ecosystem.
The report explores online discussions from March 2014 among Bitcoin Core developers pertaining to Bitcoins application layer. They began with the launch of the Counterparty protocol early that year a layer 2 solution for creating new tokens and trading them on a distributed exchange.
Counterparty uses OP_Return to store data a type of transaction output that is provably unspendable. The function can be used to burn Bitcoin or store arbitrary data in the Bitcoin blockchain, explained BitMEX.
Some say these types of transactions help to scale Bitcoin, as they do not require pruned Bitcoin nodes to store their data. This makes running a node less storage intensive for the average person, helping Bitcoin retain its decentralization.
Nevertheless, on March 20th, 2014, Bitcoin contributor Jeff Garzik began criticizing CounterPartys use of Bitcoin blockchain space in a Bitcointalk forum. He argued that the functions storage of arbitrary data in the blockchain could have negative or unintended consequences and that more efficient scaling solutions such as sidechains already existed.
In a quick back and forth, Counterparty developers ultimately agreed with Garziks stance. They asked to discuss solutions with Bitcoin core developers on how Counterparty can survive while utilizing the security of Bitcoins blockchain in a responsible manner.
However, Bitcoiners did little to support the lesser protocol. Instead, a Bitcoin dev and mining pool operator at the time named Luke-Jr accused Counterparty users of forcing Bitcoin nodes to store unexpected transaction types against their will. Like Garzik, he recommended merge-mined sidechains as a place for such alternative uses of blockchain data.
Hopefully as mining returns to being decentralized, we will see less toleration of abusive/spam transactions whether the OP_RETURN variant or otherwise, he concluded.
Backing up his statement, Luke-Jr then began censoring all Counterparty-related transactions at his mining pool. On March 28th, he then compared Counterpartys use of blockchain space to abuse against Bitcoin nodes.
Luke-Jrs statement and actions drew anger from many members of the Counterparty community. Their counter-arguments centered around Luke-Jrs seeming attempt to dictate what the Bitcoin blockchain was meant to be used for. I cant believe this attitude, said one user. I didnt know bitcoin had owners.
Others argued that Counterpartys transactions constituted financial transactions and therefore were in line with what Bitcoin nodes agreed to store. You have a much narrower view of the possible use cases for Bitcoin than do others, said Counterparty co-founder PhantomPhreak.
Bitcoin does lots of things that it was not originally intended to do, he continued. We dont want to extend the Bitcoin protocol. We want to do something entirely within it, and as simply and directly as possible, for the benefits of stability, security, etc..
Based on the overwhelming reaction from Counterpartys community, BitMEX suspects that this moment drove many developers away from Bitcoin to develop their projects on Ethereum.
As BitMEX elaborates, sidechains had failed to gain critical mass as a scaling solution for Bitcoin due to various limitations of the technology despite support from Counterpartys opponents.
One of these limitations involved the complexity of building such a sidechain. Developers simply did not have time to build a secure, merge-mined sidechain before other protocols won market share. Though sidechains like Rootstock and Liquid now exist, they are still dwarfed by Ethereum in popularity.
A second constraint surrounds the use of Bitcoin as a native asset on each chain while remaining pegged to the main Bitcoin chain. To this day, developers are yet to find a solution for building a fully trustless two-way peg between blockchains. In January, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote a Reddit post on why he believes the security of blockchain bridges is fundamentally flawed.
Finally, sidechains are thought to have limited use cases that dont ultimately require security guarantees from the main chain. Therefore, sidechains may not fully solve Bitcoins data storage issues, depending on the application.
It seems that some of the people arguing in favor of sidechains as a solution was not particularly interested in many of the Dapp applications nor had they experimented with them, stated BitMEX.
Ethereum also holds properties that make it more developer and user-friendly, such as faster block times, a less conservative blocksize constraint, and a more flexible scripting language.
However the most significant factor is culture, concluded the report.
Late last month, the popular crypto venture capitalist and researcher Nic Carter wrote a scathing essay against Bitcoiners who denied alternative use-cases for blockchains, such as stablecoins and decentralized finance.
PrimeXBT Special Offer: Use this link to register & enter POTATO50 code to receive up to $7,000 on your deposits.
More:
BitMEX Explains Why Ethereum Has More Dapps Than Bitcoin - CryptoPotato
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on BitMEX Explains Why Ethereum Has More Dapps Than Bitcoin – CryptoPotato
EU Regulator Warns About Crypto Questions Whether Many Will Survive Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
Posted: at 9:13 am
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Chair Verena Ross says that the crypto market crash should be a cautionary lesson for investors. She noted that there is a real question about whether many crypto assets will survive.
Verena Ross, chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), has cautioned investors about cryptocurrency investing after the crypto market lost 70% of its value, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
Emphasizing that there was no prospect of a European bailout for out-of-pocket crypto investors, she said:
We already warned earlier this year...about the serious risks retail investors were taking investing in some of the crypto assets.
ESMA will be responsible for licensing crypto asset service providers as recently agreed in Brussels as part of the provisional agreement on the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) proposal. The deal will enter into force from mid-2023 and has an 18-month implementation period.
The regulator will have the power to ban or restrict crypto platforms if they are seen to not properly protect investors, or threaten market integrity or financial stability.
Ross expressed concerns about small investors losing money, citing that the global crypto market has shrunk by more than 70% in the past year. In May, cryptocurrency terra (LUNA) and stablecoin terrausd (UST) collapsed, wiping out many investors. She opined:
I think there is a real question about whether many of these [crypto assets] will survive.
The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, warned in May after the collapse of LUNA and UST that many crypto tokens will fail.
The ESMA chair continued: I hope that some of these investors will see this and will take a cautionary lesson at least to think about how much of their money they invest in these kinds of assets.
In March, ESMA and other leading European financial regulators warned consumers that many crypto assets are highly risky and speculative, noting that investors face the very real possibility of losing all their invested money if they buy these assets.
Ross was further quoted as saying:
We have all said that this is something that is not currently regulated, not something where there is any control over the providers We know there is a lot of fraud and aggressive marketing going on.
Last month, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, warned that crypto assets and decentralized finance (defi) could pose financial stability risks. This would be particularly the case if the rapid growth of crypto-asset markets and services continue and the interconnectedness with both the traditional financial sector and the broader economy is intensified, she stressed.
On Monday, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) announced that it will deliver a report outlining a robust regulatory framework for crypto assets to the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in October.
What do you think about the comments by ESMA Chair Verena Ross? Let us know in the comments section below.
A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
See the article here:
EU Regulator Warns About Crypto Questions Whether Many Will Survive Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News
Posted in Bitcoin
Comments Off on EU Regulator Warns About Crypto Questions Whether Many Will Survive Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News