Duke of Marmalade
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@DazedInPontoon I think I see your point. I too am having it both ways. Fair kop. But I am not a chancer.
"If crypto is not the answer to our money problems, what is?" Good FT article
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DazedInPontoon
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You are not, and neither are some of us here, I'm pretty sure you won't find comments from me and probably not tecate egging people on when the price was going parabolic, because we knew what comes after that. And certainly not any enthusiasm about the alt coin or NFT mania.
To echo your 'fair kop' admission I will admit I thought we wouldn't get this low and made quips about it being on sale early in the year around $40k I believe. I account that to not foreseeing the Ukraine war (not my fault) and underestimating the Fed actually raising rates this aggressively (my fault).
(On an unrelated note it feels bizarre to see the bitcoin price in euros now higher than in dollars. Obviously it's just a function of the euro/dollar rate flipping past parity but I'm so used to measuring bitcoin in dollars and then reducing that for euros.)
To echo your 'fair kop' admission I will admit I thought we wouldn't get this low and made quips about it being on sale early in the year around $40k I believe. I account that to not foreseeing the Ukraine war (not my fault) and underestimating the Fed actually raising rates this aggressively (my fault).
(On an unrelated note it feels bizarre to see the bitcoin price in euros now higher than in dollars. Obviously it's just a function of the euro/dollar rate flipping past parity but I'm so used to measuring bitcoin in dollars and then reducing that for euros.)
CuriousGeorge11
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Samsung are opening a crypto exchange and are developing an inbuilt crypto wallet in their new phones. If Samsung are doing something like this then you can be sure Apple wont be far behind
It's also worth noting that since the crash when all the "I told you so" posts came rolling in that anyone who bought around that time has doubled their money
It's also worth noting that since the crash when all the "I told you so" posts came rolling in that anyone who bought around that time has doubled their money
Duke of Marmalade
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Not sure about that. I think the low was around $19k. Maybe a 10% increase.
CuriousGeorge11
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Bitcoin yes but Eth, Atom etc it's more than doubled
Duke of Marmalade
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Well I don’t follow all 10,000. I guess any sort of narrative could be picked from that lot.
The only narrative that counts is bitcoin.
CuriousGeorge11
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That's like saying I only follow the worlds top stock
Eth has the 2nd highest market cap and Atom is Cosmos IBC..arguably the best technology in crypto but I could have chosen any of the top cryptos to make the point
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DazedInPontoon
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There's bitcoin... and there's everything else. Though I will admit the Ethereum world is kind of interesting at the moment with the massive upcoming change from proof of work mining to proof of stake which will happen in September and the tornado cash drama. Being 'interesting' of course comes with a much larger chance of self-detonation.
CuriousGeorge11
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I'll be selling all eth before the merge personally, to me eth is too expensive for defi transactions and I find its main competitors to have better technology that I can use daily
That's not reasonable. So the guy compared where equities are and where Bitcoin is right now. He's quite right to do so. He's one of many to do so - and it's entirely accurate. He's presented the data and the data doesn't lie. It's a bit rich for you to complain that he's used recent data (relative to both) as part of the case he's making - seeing as time and time again, you've cherry-picked timeframes on the downside of not one but two cycles to point and say - 'look at the misguided morons who lost all their money'.
I think there's every reason to believe that Bitcoin goes down a lot further from here over the course of the next 6 months. Even if it does, that doesn't make Yusko wrong to make the point he's making right now. As @DazedInPontoon pointed out, it's all about the macro right now. And the macro is bonkers.
Here we are with the labelling again. Yusko is more than entitled to have an opinion and to share it. Even more so when he goes to the trouble of presenting it with data. What ever happened to just saying "I disagree"? The labelling is completely wrong and baseless. The guy seems credible to me. Maybe you have some other demonstration that discredits him but this is not it!
It bottomed at around $17,740 on June 18.
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Yusko is a financial charlatan, I'm sorry....you've been had......he gets on CNBC every now and again....but there's a reason CNBC is called the cartoon network .......if you watch it and put much faith in it well your a child....he & his firm Morgan Creek have jumped on every financial fad I can think off in the last number of years ….Yusko is considered a joke in the industry.....from an investment management perspective he's the equivalent of a del boy...his fads he jumps on are those that specialize in separating retail investors & naive HNY individuals/family offices from their money, namely most recently - crypto & special purpose acquisition companies, his firm created a SPAC ETF for gods sake..anybody who knows the industry knows what a scumbag move that is....before that he was selling China private equity fund vehicles...........if's it hot and being talked about at cocktail parties Yusko and Morgan Creek will jump on it....................he specializes in making charts on Twitter & coming off smart and in the know on TV........I've never seen his investment returns printed anywhere.
Please do not amplify Mark Yusko content - your just sending lambs to the slaughter.
You and I @tecate have a long standing bet into 2030...........but I find it amazing to watch bitcoins price move around with an inverse correlation to monetary policy......just like any other speculative asset it seems wholly dependent on liquidity........i thought BTC was meant to be an antidote to chaos in your portfolio.......but bitcoin is chaos in your portfolio right now, it has a higher beta than anything I know of.
I also thought that it was meant to be protection against inflation & reckless central banks......but all I can see is that bitcoins price is directly related to how loose monetary policy is or isnt...the more monetary liquidity, the higher bitcoin goes.....in fact btc's price right now looks wholly dependent on low interest rates and money printing......without it its toast.....which is quite ironic given all the crap talked about it being this whole other thing uncorrelated, an antidote to chaos & a new digital gold.
Here's $GLD vs. $BTC......I like the 'old' gold better:
I also thought that it was meant to be protection against inflation & reckless central banks......but all I can see is that bitcoins price is directly related to how loose monetary policy is or isnt...the more monetary liquidity, the higher bitcoin goes.....in fact btc's price right now looks wholly dependent on low interest rates and money printing......without it its toast.....which is quite ironic given all the crap talked about it being this whole other thing uncorrelated, an antidote to chaos & a new digital gold.
Here's $GLD vs. $BTC......I like the 'old' gold better:
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DazedInPontoon
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letitroll do you consider the current bitcoin price to be high or low, or neither?
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I don't think about it like that at all.........I think of it like a self-updating excel spreadsheet in the cloud where people take turns, for money, to claim digital ownership of a small piece of the spreadsheet for a little while in the hope that they can later sell their share for a higher price to someone else….......a reasonable price for a bitcoin doesn't even come into the framework i use to think about bitcoin and you can see why I hope.
The crescendo of cheap money & liquidity that saw bitcoin touch $69,000 is the same thing that saw since 2008 all asset values march skyward in response to falling interest rates which pushed people out the risk curve into VC and further out into Crypto…..that wave reached its high water mark at $69k bitcoin but other similarly speculative things peaked then too…..go look at the stock valuation chart for Lemonade or Rivian or Tesla or any other blue sky security or SPAC….people suspended believe for a while, and thought every frog could turn into a prince……..go have a look.....they all peaked around the same time fueled by a mania in the riskiest of assets, which all became the same thing, in effect, get rich quick speculative vehicles…..but alas that was then and this is now and liquidity is drying up, central banks have stopped printing, interest rates and therefore discount rates on future cash flows are going up making future way off dream cash flows way less valuable.
For bitcoin I look at it like a game of new fangled digital pass the parcel mixed with a multi-level marketing scheme. Its amusing to watch.........to consider its 'price' is actually to muse upon the total addressable market of people with spare money, high hopes & a level of naivety that would allow them to hand over real money for a string of alphanumeric characters in someone else's database. It's in my 'too hard' pile..... I dont know how many more naive people are out there or how much spare gambling money they have right now or in the future so I dont waste a second thinking about it & frankly even if I had an insight into its direction and future price I consider it a type of financial game beneath my contempt, so even if I had "an edge' or an insight into it I just wouldn't be interested in playing.
There is a huge amount of smart people in crypto, you & @tecate are two.....but guessing its price is a waste of brain power for these folks who could, I'd imagine, do much better trying to assess the value of companies based on their future cash flows, competitive position & future prospects relative to the share price being traded in the public markets or simply getting out from behind your laptops and going out there into the real world and providing a service somebody needs or taking some old way of doing things and thinking of a better way. Im not saying this is you or Tecate but hoping Elon/El Salvador or whoever tweets about BTC today and sends it to da moon or some other organization has got on board such that the value of your alphanumeric string of character will go up is not a productive endeavor and I'd argue its a waste of a life to have so many young minds wasting their time following and cheering on the value of a trading sardine.
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Well let's start off with a point of agreement seeing as there's plenty we haven't agreed on.
Thank you for your comments on CNBC. Of course CNBC cover Bitcoin these days - but clearly its main deal is coverage of TradFi markets generally. I agree that it's largely entertainment. I've posted warnings on CNBC 6 or 7 times here in the past but your comment is the first I've seen from anyone else warning of the dangers of CNBC.
Now on to Yusko. Even if what you say is true, I don't believe I've been had. The tiny bit I've learnt is that regardless of what individual you listen to, you can never fall into the trap of taking any one individuals view as gospel. Everyone has their own bias - which they may be driving consciously with their own agenda or sub-consciously with no ulterior motive.
I recall Jim Rodgers being interviewed going back a year or two and asked how he figures out the true picture and his starting point is to scrutinise multiple opposing views and drill down into the detail from there (and ultimately forming his own opinion - not running with someone elses) - recognising that none of them are likely to be 100% right.
I don't work in markets so I'm not in a position to agree or disagree with your take. I know next to nothing about SPACs - other than there's been more noise about them post-covid and that they haven't worked out so well for investors. Is anyone that does anything with a SPAC a charlatan? (I'm asking innocently - as I have no notion).
You mention investment returns - I suppose that would be a decent indicator of the abilities or otherwise of Morgan Creek and Yusko. Are they not required to publish those if they're regulated by the SEC? (again, an innocent question - I'd be interested to know how they perform seeing as it's come up here).
I have no interest in Morgan Creek products - Yusko hasn't sold me anything. You might think that he's sold me 'Bitcoin' if he's a proponent of it - but that leads to another question. If - like you say - Morgan Creek/Yusko latch on to anything and everything that's new, is everything that's new to be automatically understood to be useless? I've no doubt in the world that he's not going on to CNBC and being otherwise active on podcasts, etc. for any other reason other than to corner business in that sector. Surely that doesn't mean to say that there can't be anything wholesome in the sector itself? Yusko doesn't control Bitcoin.
There are a couple of gold-focused podcasts I check in with where all the guests are connected with the gold business in one way or another. How is that any different? I listen to what they have to say - but I don't think it's any coincidence that it's incredibly depressing - gold bugs don't sell good news! But then I think you have to have a healthy cynicism about every view expressed out there - listen to the counter view and try and make sense of all of that for yourself.
When I posted his tweet, I was thinking about its content. The message wasn't "This is the word of M.Y". The great thing about discussion forums like this is that anything posted openly can be torn asunder. If you go back to that tweet - is it wayward? Have equities almost never been at such a high price in the history of markets? Have at it and tear it apart - I'd genuinely like to know if what he's put forward is inaccurate.
As regards the lambs, I get the sentiment if you believe Yusko to be a charlatan. However, I'd take the view that no 'lamb' should be taking the word of any one human being as gospel to start with. That's everyone's responsibility to themselves.
Indeed we do. Good news - you're winning ( 2,683 days to go).
Not out of the box, it's not. From the outset of discussions here going back 5 years, there has been an acknowledgement from both sides of the argument that Bitcoin is cyclical in its current form. Claims related to its role as digital gold (or similar) have been made on the basis that it has the capability to fulfil such a role when it matures.
Nobody denies that it is behaving like anything other than a risk-on asset right now. However, plenty are claiming that it has the fundamental characteristics of a risk-off asset and as it matures, that will manifest itself. I know you don't believe that - and we don't need to go into all that again - but I just wanted to clarify that nobody expects Bitcoin to be released into the world and immediately act as a risk off asset from day 1.
Bitcoin responded to CB balance sheet expansion from 2020 onwards. The inflation we're seeing now is as a result of that. Beyond that, if we are to acknowledge that Bitcoin goes through cycles and is just on the downward leg of a recent hype cycle - how would anyone expect it to go up right now or to lack volatility?
Bear in mind that Gold - in its past - has seen plenty of volatility.
See above. You've been following events. You're aware that Bitcoin is on the downside leg of a recent hype cycle that stretches back the past year (and longer). That's symptomatic of its immaturity. Gold by contrast is a mature asset. You can claim that Bitcoin is pointless/useless, etc etc - but you can't deny that whatever it is and whatever you believe, Bitcoin is immature as an asset. When these cycles stop, then we'll know it to have matured.
I've a reasonable wedge in the old gold since ..I think it's 18 months or so. Insofar as I can see, it hasn't moved up. I've just checked 6/12/24 month charts (vs USD) - it's down on all three.
I'm pretty confident that the market has moved on from hanging off of Elon's tweets! I am hoping that he never tweets about crypto ever again - that would be a net positive. That's not to say that there are not people who act on such tweets. In the case of the Elon example, they were all proven to be newcomers who didn't understand what it was they were buying. That resulted in them being the first to exit the market.
I'd much prefer a nice sober gradual rise in BTC spot price in tandem with adoption but this is not how people behave (hype cycles are in no way exclusive to Bitcoin).
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I do. I have a Mastercard where I decide beforehand which of my crypto or fiat balances are used in which order to pay for groceries etc.
Are you actually spending crypto in that case or are you cashing in your crypto in order to pay in the local currency?
Why is that important? For many conventional payments, there are settlements being made in the middle that users are totally oblivious to.
For a user who wants to spend crypto, what difference does it make to them if there's a conversion done immediately before the actual or ultimate transaction? Last month, Mastercard announced its intention to enable crypto payments in 90 million stores. Its CEO said that the move unlocks crypto's potential in terms of everyday purchases.
What it means for a crypto user is that suddenly they are enabled in using crypto for payments. In the past, they might have wanted to be paid in crypto and to pay for goods and services in crypto but come to the conclusion that its simply not feasible as much as they'd like to operate in crypto. Now they can. For people around them that have never held or accepted crypto, if they interact with them in a situation where crypto can be spent at will anywhere for anything, then those individuals are going to be more likely to accept a crypto payment.
Case in point. I offered to pay someone I know in BTC the other week. He didn't want to accept it - and it's understandable - as all of his bills are in fiat. If - as this progresses, his obligations remain in fiat BUT he knows he can spend crypto at ease to settle those obligations, he's not going to object to my request.
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Dont you get it @tecate these institutions love this crypto settlement layer stuff.........not because they are all in on crypto and are believers.........its just an unbelievable opportunity for them to do two very important things (listed below) and your also btw coming to the wrong macro conclusion to boot! Read on, let me enlighten you first with the two reasons below, the big picture at the end. I have so much to teach you....but we'll get you out of this Crypto cult yet :0 Only joking, I'm just pretend gas lighting you (all in good fun).
(1) MasterCard are engaging in whats commonly referred to as 'innovation theatre'.........large cap publicly traded corporates have whole divisions of people ensuring they are seen to be at the 'cutting edge' on whatever the 'hot' new thing might be...keeping up appearance is important nobody wants to be the old crusty institution thats behind on the new shiny stuff..........that 'hot thing' however dumb it might in practise needs to show up somewhere in their innovation/next generation strategy/press release documents to keep Wall St. & investors happy.
(2) Make a shed load of fees (while doing (1))....Crypto is like the best innovation theatre anybody ever invented because you can actually get paid a SHED load to engage in it...Why?......... we've talked about this before....and as you know already.....Crypto is a pigs trough of transaction fees & hidden spread capturing..........the likes and level of which were last seen in 'Trad-Fi' three or four decades ago before regulation and competition killed it. Mastercard/PayPal/Coinbase.....cant believe there's people out there willing to pay the brokerage and transaction fees they are getting right now (some explicit, some hidden). Whoever runs these crypto divisions in these groups must chuckle at night going to bed.........cause they are fully aware how competition in 'trad-fi' has driven all manor of transaction fees down to practically ZERO over the last 30 years......and then this crypto baby shows up out of no where with just unbelievably juicy spreads/fees.......... I'd say the people in MasterCard's eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they first heard what fees/spreads could be made offering this settlement service. While also engaging in Innovation theatre....win/win as they say.
The only thing you might say in defense is the following @tecate and I'll say it for you to save you typing and it goes something like this........I'm channeling my inner crypto so bear with me.............. perhaps this fee stuff is the necessary evil required to drive adoption, the trojan horse if you will, thats getting these established institutions to unbeknownst to them let the fox (disrupt everything crypto)...into the hen house (trad-fi)....I've heard that argument it sounds smart, weaponize these blood hungry corporates desire for money against.........sucker them in with juicy crypto fees, then take over from the inside out and they wont know what hit them! Did I get that crypto insider talking point about right? Thats the line I think?
Only problem is.........I know these guys, they play 4D chess, I've met crypto guys they play 3D chess.........
See you've got it all wrong, you champion this news as sign that BTC is 'winning' & adoption is growing........its the opposite in fact............MasterCard isn't adopting crypto to allow it to disrupt the traditional payment rails like you dream it is....MasterCard & Visa are cold blooded monopolists, like I said they play 4D chess....they've looked at this crypto crap from top to bottom, put their best MBA & consulting group minds on it and have come to the conclusion that....well........ its kind of joke, a fad, the hot new thing with a shed load of fees attached to it and if in the unlikely even it ever looked like it might be a fox in the hen coop they've also done a risk assesment on how they would tank it and are obviously happy that they could kill that fox before its out of nappies............ (all while getting (1) & (2) done in the meantime)....as Del Boy used to say lovely jubbly Rodney, lovely jubbly