Bitcoin

Ron Resnick

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BTC just broke to a lower weekly low. I would buy some more at about 45,000 (late February low) and I would buy a lot more at about 32,000 (late January low).
 
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Ron Resnick

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Zero000

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It's curious that XRP is banned on Coinbase and under SEC investigation yet is pumping like there is no tomorrow.

Binance is ten times bigger than Coinbase (and therefore worth massively more) and I think the demand must be being routed via that South Korean exchange. Putting two fingers up to the SEC, basically.
 

Ron Resnick

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Is anyone planning to buy Coinbase on Wednesday?

Bear Case: Coinbase is going public at a very high valuation in traditional stock exchange and stock brokerage firm terms. Even if the crypto ecosystem continues to expand it is hard to see how Coinbase's U.S. market share of crypto brokerage has anywhere to go but down, as legacy brokers like Fidelity enter the market.

Also, Coinbase charges high transaction fees, and it is hard to see how their commission operating margin has anywhere to go but down as crypto brokerage competition increases.

Bull Case: A rising crypto market and blockchain ecosystem will lift all boats, and Coinbase's business will expand even as its market share declines.

Also, traditional institutional and individual investors interested in Bitcoin exposure but who are not ready to purchase Bitcoin directly will see Coinbase as a proxy for Bitcoin and a way to achieve indirect exposure to this field. Traditional investors know how to value Bitcoin even less than they know how to value Coinbase, and since they can value Coinbase, they might be more comfortable buying Coinbase.
 
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Folsom

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It's curious that XRP is banned on Coinbase and under SEC investigation yet is pumping like there is no tomorrow.

Binance is ten times bigger than Coinbase (and therefore worth massively more) and I think the demand must be being routed via that South Korean exchange. Putting two fingers up to the SEC, basically.

You must be joking...

XRP has none of the inherent coding that makes Bitcoin safe. XRP is nothing more than a way for asian banks to avoid western clearing houses with the side ability to double spend/modify the ledger however they please. Basically their governments don't understand it enough to stop it so it's gone wild.
 

Ron Resnick

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Folsom,

Do you think any of the alt-coins could become stores of value or inherently increase in value for some fundamental business reason, or is each of them merely a functional token to access a blockchain service with no obvious intrinsic value?

Putting the question another way: are you a Bitcoin maximalist?
 
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Zero000

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Jul 28, 2014
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You must be joking...

XRP has none of the inherent coding that makes Bitcoin safe. XRP is nothing more than a way for asian banks to avoid western clearing houses with the side ability to double spend/modify the ledger however they please. Basically their governments don't understand it enough to stop it so it's gone wild.
I do think it's amusing.

The SEC basically destroyed it with its investigation and look at it now.

But will it hold? XRP has a massive pump and dump history.
 

Folsom

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Folsom,

Do you think any of the alt-coins could become stores of value or inherently increase in value for some fundamental business reason, or is each of them merely a functional token to access a blockchain service with no obvious intrinsic value?

Putting the question another way: are you a Bitcoin maximalist?

I am not, but one would be kidding themselves to think that Bitcoin isn't the most stable and the clearest one with a future.

Ethereum seems really promising but needs work. In fact a lot of utility coins need some work. The thing is they also need adoption by bigger scale. The biggest threat to Ethereum is the original creator. He's a censorist. He's stupid when it comes to anything but crypto. Where as with BTC the primary vested interest globally is monetary, not any sort of other value. For that reason the globe with mostly entirely impartiality to anything but the chain itself votes on any changes to the code in BTC, and it keeps equal and fair use.

As to the SEC, they seem to be a bunch of confused morons still when it comes to BTC because they try to apply inapplicable laws to it, forcing the US to play 3rd world fiddle. It's an actual threat to us that other countries don't try to compile dinosaur fodder on top of it.
 

Vienna

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The attached report from Financial Stability Institute (FSI) was published some days ago. It seems that crypto markets will soon be very different
 

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  • ???. 1_BIS FSI Report Crypto-Assets & AML.pdf
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Ron Resnick

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Thank you for posting this.

This report reads to me like typical financial regulation-ese.

I do not interpret the discussions in this document to suggest that crypto markets soon will be very different. It is natural that financial regulators in each country, and supranational financial regulators, will seek to apply standard concepts like anti-money laundering to cryptocurrencies. Light, conventional regulation like AML will, I think, foster wider cryptocurrency adoption.

The decentralization genius underlying Bitcoin, if properly understood by sensible regulators, hopefully will dissuade national and international regulators from unnecessary or over-reaching regulatory efforts.
 
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Folsom

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Thank you for posting this.

This report reads to me like typical financial regulation-ese.

I do not interpret the discussions in this document to suggest that crypto markets soon will be very different. It is natural that financial regulators in each country, and supranational financial regulators, will seek to apply standard concepts like anti-money laundering to cryptocurrencies. Light, conventional regulation like AML will, I think, foster wider cryptocurrency adoption.

The decentralization genius underlying Bitcoin, if properly understood by sensible regulators, hopefully will dissuade national and international regulators from unnecessary or over-reaching regulatory efforts.

High hopes considering the US has already failed to follow the tech.

Bigger questions are things like why is the US taxing cryptos? They don't provide any of the infrastructure or protection of it. They can't FDIC it. The companies that are stewards already pay tax. It's just a foolish disadvantage.
 

Ron Resnick

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Bigger questions are things like why is the US taxing cryptos? They don't provide any of the infrastructure or protection of it. They can't FDIC it. The companies that are stewards already pay tax. It's just a foolish disadvantage.

Respectfully, I encourage you to do some basic research on federal taxation.

The question you might be asking is whether the government should be taxing capital gains on any asset. That question is well-settled, and the answer currently is "yes."

Bitcoin is a trade-able, fungible asset -- a commodity or a currency or both (take your pick) -- so it clearly is subject to capital gains tax. Why would gold be subject to capital gains tax and not Bitcoin?

You're asking a question about double taxation, and that question, also, was settled long ago.

Of course the steward of the asset pays taxes. Just because Fidelity holds your stock Fidelity shouldn't pay its own corporate taxes? And if Fidelity pays it own corporate taxes, then you should not pay your own capital gains tax on that stock?

Is stock FDIC insured? Are bonds? Silver?

None of the issues you are raising are unique to Bitcoin.
 
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Folsom

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Respectfully, I encourage you to do some basic research on federal taxation.

The question you might be asking is whether the government should be taxing capital gains on any asset. That question is well-settled, and the answer currently is "yes."

Bitcoin is a trade-able, fungible asset -- a commodity or a currency or both (take your pick) -- so it clearly is subject to capital gains tax. Why would gold be subject to capital gains tax and not Bitcoin?

You're asking a question about double taxation, and that question, also, was settled long ago.

Of course the steward of the asset pays taxes. Just because Fidelity holds your stock Fidelity shouldn't pay its own corporate taxes? And if Fidelity pays it own corporate taxes, then you should not pay your own capital gains tax on that stock?

Is stock FDIC insured? Are bonds? Silver?

None of the issues you are raising are unique to Bitcoin.

If Fidelity lost your stocks somehow, but had a record of it, they'd be responsible and held accountable. If BTC is lost there is no one you can call if it wasn't in a steward wallet. It may as well be in outer-space. We pay taxes for infrastructure and protection of rights, of which the government can't offer for BTC except in ways that are already taxed. They're pretty different.
 

Ron Resnick

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If Fidelity lost your stocks somehow, but had a record of it, they'd be responsible and held accountable. If BTC is lost there is no one you can call if it wasn't in a steward wallet. It may as well be in outer-space. We pay taxes for infrastructure and protection of rights, of which the government can't offer for BTC except in ways that are already taxed. They're pretty different.

I see no difference. I really think you're mixing and matching unrelated things.

If Fidelity lost your street name stock, and denied responsibility, you could ask the SEC to investigate, but you would have to sue Fidelity.

If Coinbase lost your Bitcoin, and denied
responsibility, you could ask the SEC to investigate, but you would have to sue Coinbase.

"We pay taxes for infrastructure and protection of rights." What are you talking about that is relevant to the instant question?

Some federal tax we pay funds the administrative bureaucracy, including the SEC and the CFTC. Neither the SEC nor the CFTC operates insurance programs for the assets under their respective regulatory jurisdictions.

Why do you think some brand new federal insurance program suddenly should spring to life to protect Bitcoin?
 

Folsom

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I see no difference. I really think you're mixing and matching unrelated things.

If Fidelity lost your street name stock, and denied responsibility, you could ask the SEC to investigate, but you would have to sue Fidelity.

If Coinbase lost your Bitcoin, and denied
responsibility, you could ask the SEC to investigate, but you would have to sue Coinbase.

"We pay taxes for infrastructure and protection of rights." What are you talking about that is relevant to the instant question?

Some federal tax we pay funds the administrative bureaucracy, including the SEC and the CFTC. Neither the SEC nor the CFTC operates insurance programs for the assets under their respective regulatory jurisdictions.

Why do you think some brand new federal insurance program suddenly should spring to life to protect Bitcoin?

No, I think they should deregulate something that doesn't need regulation.

If you lose BTC from your own wallet there is no one to sue.
 

Ron Resnick

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If you lose BTC from your own wallet there is no one to sue.

Exactly the same as if you drop your gold coins into the river there's no one to sue.
 

Ron Resnick

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BTC new all time high!

US$63,273 on coinbase
 
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ack

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I have no freaking idea why this is happening. impressive nonetheless
 
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