The Bitcoin Thread (price and other bitcoin related topics)
I have created this Bitcoin thread for guys who are primarily interested in Bitcoin or bitcoin focused topics.
There are a lot of “crypto” distractions out there.  Bitcoin and “crypto” are not the same thing, so let’s try to stay focused in this thread, at least try.
If there is not some kind of connection in your post to Bitcoin, then perhaps such post should be made in another thread.
A bit of personal background:
Personally, I found out about bitcoin in late 2013, and within a few weeks of looking into bitcoin, I started buying Bitcoin.
My initial plan regarding my bitcoin investment was to dollar cost average buy it for 6 months, while studying the space and to reassess whether I would continue with my Bitcoin buying plan after those first 6 months or to tweak my bitcoin investment plan in some kind of way.  Over the last nearly 6 years, I have been continuing to invest in bitcoin, study the space and to tweak my bitcoin investment plans and my activities around bitcoin.
Regarding my bitcoin experience.  I expect that there are going to be guys of all levels of experience, whether in bitcoin or otherwise who are going to come to this thread and either expect to brainstorm about bitcoin, to share their experiences with bitcoin or to ask questions about bitcoin.   Hopefully, guys who participate in this thread will attempt to help other guys, so in that regard, your level of experience in bitcoin should not deter you from being able to participate in this thread as long as you are interested in the bitcoin topic.  
Generally, what’s going on in bitcoin:
There has always been a lot going on in bitcoin, so there is never really any shortage of bitcoin topics or information whether current happenings or historical data.  It tends to be true that when BTC’s price is not moving very much or if bitcoin’s price seems to be in a kind of depressed status or in a downward trajectory, then many people tend to lose interest in the bitcoin topic. 
I don’t tend to lose interest, but hey, I cannot guarantee that there is not going to be times in which I just am not able to focus on bitcoin based on a variety of other things going on in my life.. which does happen, too.
In the past several months interest in bitcoin has increased.  Of course, in the past 3 months, largely starting on April 1, bitcoin’s price broke above $4,200 and has been on a kind of upward tear trajectory during those last 3 months.  There have been a lot of calls and suggestions that Bitcoin’s price is going to correct at some point, with a lot of waiting for such a bitcoin price correction, but instead of correcting, largely bitcoin’s price has continued to go up with continued upwards price pressures, with only a couple of short term price corrections during that time in the 15% to 25% range… and as I type BTC’s price is bouncing just above $11,250, which is more than a 150% price increase from its April 1 price of $4,200….and a new high point for the last year and a half. 
Things are currently great for those who have invested in bitcoin and continue to hold Bitcoin.
By the way, when I refer to BTC’s price, I refer to it’s price on Bitstamp, because Bitstamp remains a decent reference point and puts everyone on the same page in terms of a kind of reliable exchange that, so far, does not engage in margin trading that can screw up price performance and measurements of trade volume, and even though there are a lot of other places to look at Bitcoin’s price and to consider various aspects of bitcoin’s liquidation possibilities, it is also good to attempt to ground those various other price frameworks in terms of what is going on with the bitstamp price.
Surely, BTC’s price will be a fair topic here, as well as considerations of bitcoin development, adoption, FUD spreading or any current or historical happenings in the bitcoin space, including even talking about what kinds of liquidation options might be available (or vary) from location to location. 
Other consideration related to attempts at on-topicness in this thread:
To the extent that other crypto projects are discussed in this thread, there should, at least, be some kind of an attempt to relate that topic to bitcoin.  Yes, there are a lot of pump and dump projects that project themselves as being bitcoin 2.0, and bitcoin forks such as bcash and bcash SV, and other shenanigans around projects like that attempting to proclaim themselves as the real bitcoin or as a bitcoin replacement or a project that is fixing some kind of alleged bitcoin deficiency, and hopefully we are attempting to be smart enough in this thread to not get too distracted or derailed by those various other projects that might claim to be “related to” bitcoin, but in reality are not.  

Yes, some guys might believe that ethereum and bitcoin are sufficiently related or that litecoin or monero are not hostile to bitcoin, but they still are off-topic when it comes to this thread, and as a courtesy, we should at least attempt to stay on the bitcoin topic in this thread.
We have enough to discuss and consider in relation to bitcoin without getting distracted by nonsense sham projects and misinformation, right?  Of course there will be topics like "investment" that overlaps with bitcoin, and sure that would not be a problem to have some posts on "investment and investing strategies" that at least attempt to discuss how bitcoin can be considered within that kind of a topic framework.
I look forward to participating in topics of this thread and reading a lot of contributions from guys of varying perspectives (newbies and experts) who want to share information about bitcoin, whether positive or negative, bullish or bearish.  Hopefully, we can stick to facts, logic and opinions that are based on facts and logics rather than misleading talking points.  Sure, there will be times that we might need to sort through a certain amount of misinformation and NOT get distracted by detracting talking points that are NOT really as bitcoin as they might purport themselves to be.    
There is no need for verification, as not a single person on Earth could imitate the wonderful, relentless & pedantic JJG!
Linked below is an interesting article from today, suggesting that institutional money is going to keep BTC price pressures in the upwards direction.


Here's another article that just came out regarding LedgerX receiving approval to settle bitcoin futures.  I am not sure if is going to be a BIG thing, but surely evidence of further financialization avenues into and out of bitcoin.

JJG what did you pay for your first BTC?
(06-25-2019, 04:16 PM)SC87 Wrote: JJG what did you pay for your first BTC?

I don't believe that the price that I paid for my first BTC is very relevant except if it is viewed in context.

Without giving up too much personal financial details, I will start out by directly answering your question, and that is that in one of the last days in November 2013, I contacted a guy through LocalBitcoins, and I paid $1,500 for 1.24 BTC, so that would have been $1,200 per BTC for that first transaction.

The reason that I suggest that you need to understand the context of my first purchase is that I had a 6 month buying plan, and I had already authorized myself a certain amount to be able to spend on BTC for six months.  I had a weekly allocation, and that initial $1,500 was meant to serve as a kind of front loading of my investment, in order that I would feel that at least I have some stake in BTC no matter if the price goes up or down.

Of course, at the time, I already could see the Bitcoin price charts, so I could see that in 2013, BTC had already experienced two exponential growth periods that year... one earlier in the year, and then the second one was happening as I was making my first purchase.  Of course, no one really knew what was going to happen with BTC price, but there was still a decent inclination that investing at the top of two exponential price growth periods that had already caused about a 100x price increase for the year was not exactly going to be a stable starting price.  

Accordingly, I had established a kind of dollar cost averaging plan, which involved a weekly allowance for myself to buy BTC that would spread over my first six months into the investment.  Nearing the end of the first six months, at about five months into it, I felt that I had pretty much stayed on my schedule, and when I reassessed my situation, I pretty much allocated a similar budget to my BTC investment for the next 6 months.

For the next couple of years, my BTC investment  spent a considerable amount of time in the red.

The approximate performance numbers of my BTC portfolio/strategy was as follows:
Date                 Avg cost per BTC           BTC price            % Profitable
mid-2014           $619.00                         $642.00                      3.72%
Late 2014           $544.00                         $321.00                     -40.99%
mid-2015           $519.00                          $230.00                      -55.68%
Late 2015           $499.00                         $420.00                      -15.83%
mid-2016           $493.00                          $500.00                      1.42%
Late 2016           $497.00                         $1,000.00                    101.21%

Starting in 2017, we know what happens, and BTC's price largely exploded upwardly, and even the 2018 price correction did not bring BTC prices even close to my average cost per BTC - even though I had some issues in early 2017 in which my phone got sim ported which allowed for a loss of a decent amount of my BTC stash that was being held on a variety of exchanges that ended up being compromised (irreversibly taken) due to the sim porting security breach that I experienced.  But anyhow, my profitability became a lot less due to stolen coins, but I have never gone even close to being in the red again after mid-2017 when BTC's price pretty much continued to go up from that point and did not return to even mid-2017 levels during the 2018 BTC price correction.

Actually, no matter what the BTC price, in the past few years, I had continued to suggest that guys (and even girls that I know, including my mom and some other girls) engage in a kind of dollar cost averaging approach to their BTC investment. Of course, there is a need to tailor your BTC investment to your own financial situation and life circumstances including your: other investments that you might have, cash flow, risk-tolerance, views about bitcoin, timeline, skills and talents to manage your holdings or time constraints that you might have.

I can provide another link to a dollar cost averaging calculator, if guys here are interested, that shows that dollar cost averaging tends to be quite a profitable approach and historically would have been so for bitcoin, even if guys had started to invest at the top of this most recent price rise in December 2017 at $19,666.

By the way, the below-linked article from today is bordering a bit on the side of a tangent, but it does provide a bit of an example of an ongoing attack on bitcoin in which stupid-ass fraudster Craig Wright has been proclaiming himself to be Satoshi for the past couple of years with the bullshit escalating on an ongoing basis - which could also cause Wright to get put in jail, depending on how a Florida court may want to deal with some of Wright's most recent misrepresentations including his unwillingness (more likely situation) or perhaps inability (giving him some benefit of the doubt) to produce evidence in support of claims that he had been making in some of his court papers - but overall the shenanigans related to that shit-stirrer can have some impacts on bitcoin prices from time to time, especially when some normies are confused by the whole situation, including attempting to figure out what bitcoin is.

I wonder how many people new to Bitcoin end up buying BSV,BCH,Bitcoin diamond or gold etc. as a mistake.
(06-25-2019, 07:10 PM)SC87 Wrote: I wonder how many people new to Bitcoin end up buying BSV,BCH,Bitcoin diamond or gold etc. as a mistake.

I have no idea either.  It is probably not a large percentage, but that does not take away from the fact that there is a decent amount of confusion in the space regarding what differentiates bitcoin from those other shitcoins that use bitcoin in their name.  Confusion can also cause some people to refrain from buying based on the level of confusion that they experience.  

Surely, I will concede that in the end, if a decent number of people are confused and failing to buy or adopt bitcoin based on such confusion and misinformation, then that is likely to keep bitcoin's price down, and in that regard, those people who are either not confused or are able to recognized the unappreciated value will be benefiting from the asymmetric information.  

So, yeah, if you have a decent amount of patience, then you can experience a sufficient amount of confidence that your investment into bitcoin is going to pay off handsomely for you in the longer run, while the value of bitcoin becomes more and more widely understood and accepted.

I think that scam is running out now that the education is getting better. Coinbase surely did not help with the way they released Bcash to the public which reeked of insider info. It is still the wild west, but bitcoin is maturing exponentially each new block.
At this rate we could have a new ATH within a few days or a week.
(06-26-2019, 07:32 PM)SC87 Wrote: At this rate we could have a new ATH within a few days or a week.

I know. BTC's price movement, especially in the past few days, seems kind of ridiculous, doesn't it?  

The slope of the price rise on almost any BTC chart is certainly getting steeper and steeper.

Goes along with the theory that "the market", which would include bitcoin here, "can stay irrational for much longer than you can stay solvent."

Hey... I am not complaining, and I am sure that the vast majority of bitcoin HODLers and accumulators are not complaining.

Of course, the fence sitters, the no coiners and the ones who sold too much BTC too early are likely concerned about this particular lost opportunity for them.
Before the latest rise above 6k I was hoping that the market would stay sideways for a bit until I had more $ to invest. It is what is, but I'm seething now seeing these gains that I'm missing out on.
I don't know how to read this guy, Stephen Moore, exactly.

More or less in this about 1 minute blurb he is saying that central banks are freaking out about bitcoin, and he seems to be kind of freaking out, too.  Part of the concern that he expresses, seems to be an inability to really know how to stop bitcoin from doing its thing (or to control bitcoin - which surely is a built in feature in bitcoin rather than a bug), and Moore seems to kind of get it, in this little blurb.


But, I will point out that in this blurb he also seems to believe that any kind of meaningful monetary goal should be "stability" so he kind of seems to be downplaying the sound money angle of what bitcoin is attempting to address... at least in this short blurb.

(06-26-2019, 08:08 PM)SC87 Wrote: Before the latest rise above 6k I was hoping that the market would stay sideways for a bit until I had more $ to invest. It is what is, but I'm seething now seeing these gains that I'm missing out on.

Definitely kind of in the outside range of extreme cases in terms of what would have been expected  as compared with what actually happened.

Like I mentioned in another post, it took me a good year to accumulate what I believed to have been a decent BTC stash, but even for the next couple of years, I had continued to be nervous about whether I had accumulated enough.. so I understand that if any guy is in the early stages of BTC accumulation, then these kinds of radical price moves adds to anxiety over the situation and even possibly causing guys to consider whether his investment plan needs to be tweaked in some kind of a significant way.
Starting to develop a 6th sense for peaks and troughs. Just sold a chunk at $13,400. Down to $12,300 at the moment.

Kind of astounded by the value increase though. I keep selling off as it seems unsustainable at least in the short term. But even with the sell offs my holdings are more than retaining USD value.
(06-27-2019, 07:56 AM)SpecialEd Wrote: Starting to develop a 6th sense for peaks and troughs. Just sold a chunk at $13,400. Down to $12,300 at the moment.


Fair enough.

There may be some short term opportunities.... that's for sure, as long as you are not attempting to play too BIG there seems to be some justification for some more correction.

I sell on the way up and buy on the way down, so I don't make any subsequent move with my holdings (for example I would not sell now because my sell orders start in the mid-$13k and my buy orders start in the upper $11ks - more or less).

Up is still preferred by me, but no need to fight it, either.. If she wants to go down, then so be it - make some lemonade with such lemons.
Pag do you realize how big of a faggot you are?
(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Bitcoin is for autistic retards and gamblers.

When you start out of the gate like that, hard to know if to take you seriously.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Any "currency" not tied directly to either some unit of energy or time-work unit or some basis of exchange that is universally in demand is and always will be a bankers scheme/Ponzi scheme (same thing if you know the history).

You seem to not understand bitcoin.  You seem to be attempting to make a pretty lame point about having to have some kind of tangible connection for value to exist, though, at the same time, you don't seem to understand that proof of work also causes bitcoin to be "tied to something" which is math which results in the security of a network through a pretty BIG ass computing system that is aimed at mining bitcoin, which is not exactly nothing, either.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: The creator of Bitcoin is Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur/computer scientist who had been producing software for online casinos and other gambling businesses for years when he was writing computer code that later helped to develop bitcoin. He worked on computer code with an American cybersecurity consultant named David Kleiman, and by 2011 the pair had amassed 1.1 million bitcoins, worth more than $1 billion at today's prices.

Who gives any shits about Craig Wright and his story about what he supposedly did, which has been proven to be a bunch of lies.  You going to cite the stories of a conman sheister as if they had any true underlying facts.

You must really want to be taken for a ride, but more likely you are either being paid to spout out those talking bcash sv talking points.  No one should be so dumb to actually believe what you are asserting, so I am attempting
to grant you some kind of benefit of the doubt.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: In 2015, associates of Wright began setting up companies making bitcoin and blockchain patent applications. To get Bitcoin adapted he played some humble Japanese scientist not interested in money. Wright and his associates have lodged more than 70 patent applications in Britain and have plans to file many more. However, the Chinese are cracking down on Bitcoin and his scheme is just about over.

Well, yeah, the truth of the matter is that Wright like got involved in bitcoin in about 2015 to begin to perpetuate a scheme.. that involved a bunch of schemes, mumbo jumbo and various ways to attempt to attack bitcoin... whether his efforts have personally paid off for him, who knows.  He could end up in jail in the near future based on the level of his various frauds and likely that his shenanigans might catch up with him.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: https://markets.businessinsider.com/curr...1028097160

China is going down because their energy demands are so high that they will be paying the USA for oil and gas for the next few decades, which means the USA keeps their top dog status until oil runs out in twenty to thirty years. Large populations have a propensity to demand the energy they can't live without, so I guess that isn't too much speculation. Luckily, solar efficiency has already created enough alternative energy sources to be reasonably replacement and is only getting better, e.g. solarcity's 22percent efficient cells with 30-40percent more energy per panel news yesterday. So no real doom scenarios for the future.

The most interesting thing about the future is that with about 40kwatt of continuous energy available, you can provide luxury living for 10-20people depending on their waste levels. In other words, you can profit off of people's desires to vacation and spend on experiences or just living in comfort on a very small scale level... After the initial investment into solar panels, these little gooseberry farm retreats and health spa experiences are going to be sweat little opulent retirement villages.

You seem to be getting distracted with your little tangential discussion about china and energy and whatever fucking points you are attempting to make that are supposedly somehow related to bitcoin.  Bitcoin gives two shits about your various observations about china's relationship with energy and those kinds of matters.  Surely if any country's people become victim of bad government policies (does not matter which country), they may be able to hedge some of their bets with bitcoin to the extent that their local currencies (or other ways to store value) run into issues.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Anyway, Bitcoin is now just a game of who gets left holding the hot potato. Completely shit.

Again, you seem to not understand bitcoin or what it is.  Perhaps you are also conflating bitcoin and other crypto currencies since you are talking about craig wright and his bcash sv fork..?

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: In other news, I made 80% return in 6 hours with basic investing... I had held it, I'd have made over 50k in under three weeks lol peaked out at a high of 70k in those three weeks. I bought a pinksheet listed bankrupt company's shares that is potentially going to wipe its shares in a few days off the market when they submit their reorganization plan on the 30th. Hence the 80% return was good enough for me, holding it for the bigger return was too risky.

Who gives any shits about your off-topic investments, if true.  This thread is about bitcoin.  Are you trying to make some kind of comparison?  Anyone can make a lot of money in a short period of time, if they time a pump or something like that and even using leverage or whatever.  If you are trying to make a comparison, you seem to be a bit off topic.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: I keep an eye out for companies that should be valued above their market shares. The worst ones are companies that have tech they don't understand how to utilize, the little bankrupt one is a perfect example of a tech company that should be worth several hundred dollars a share and is worth shit because they sell material processing units to semiconductor companies instead of the highest quality silicon wafers that they could make themselves with their tech if they knew some of the shit I know. The reason they are bankrupt is because they made a deal that didn't work out the way they expected it to and were forced to shutdown a huge expansion effort.

There is another thread on this forum about investing, to the extent that any guys here might be interested in what you do.

(06-27-2019, 03:22 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Thanks for playing,


[img    https://i.imgur.com/QSxVt4km.jpg[/img]

[img   https://i.imgur.com/dgLgsEym.jpg[/img]

I don't understand your point with the pics.  Are you trying to create legitimacy through doxing?  Personal information is not necessary in these here parts, and actually could be frowned upon if you are trying to suggest that other guys need to provide personal information in order to be credible.  If that is your implication?
^ JJG since you just signed up you probably don't know that this guy is a troll who's been on here for a while and been banned multiple times. He has shown stacks of cash, his "dates" and shit like that.
(06-27-2019, 04:36 PM)SC87 Wrote: ^ JJG since you just signed up you probably don't know that this guy is a troll who's been on here for a while and been banned multiple times. He has shown stacks of cash, his "dates" and shit like that.

Ok... thanks.  Fair enough.  I do tend to respond to misleading points to the extent that I believe some kind of clarification might be needed, which I thought was necessary in my above response.

Of course, if the misleading post from troll/shills like that is going to be deleted by mods, which could be another avenue, then I would not feel any need to clarify some of those various misleading points.
(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote:
(06-27-2019, 04:35 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote: [edited out]

Blah, of course you don't understand my points.

Are they worth understanding?

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: You're technologically illiterate.

Huh? Very presumptuous of you. I am participating in a thread to share knowledge on a topic. What is the purpose of comparing areas of supposed expertise? Such as technical literacy? There are a lot of ways to understand bitcoin and to share information on the topic, and if some guys have more "expertise" than others in certain areas, then hopefully we can share what we know in order to become better informed rather than some kind of dick measuring contest concerning who has more of what.. such as your implication that you supposedly know more than me in one area (technologically.. blah blah blah.. who cares?)

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Which is why you don't understand bit coin. 

You are the one who does not seem to understand it. I got that from your post.

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Energy is the limiting factor associated with any new technology. If you push energy in one way or another, you usually have to control the push in that direction and that takes energy.

You come off as distracted. Sure energy is a component, but bitcoin is decentralized and based on incentives, so miners choose how much to mine based on incentives and their choices about how much to mine will contribute towards their energy consumption levels. They choose to mine or not to mine. No one is forcing them.

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: To keep a system clean or to prevent decay or to repair the damage done by constant variations, etc etc takes energy. The result is the same, energy is the limiting factor... If we go to the next level, something like Dyson sphere level of energy control, the capabilities within reach are beyond most people's imaginations. 

You appear to be off topic, again... or at least going into a kind of tangent that might only be relevant from a kind of minute perspective, perhaps? Giving you the benefit of the doubt again.

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Unlocking a bitcoin requires an intense amount of computational power. Where its value is derived by solving a programmable puzzle. Getting through this puzzle requires computer brainpower.

I think that it only requires two computers, but with the passage of time the network has grown to beyond minimum requirements. The more value in the system, the more justification to have more value spent to secure it. Of course, in bitcoin a vast majority is decentralized, but also based on incentives. For example, you are not going to want to store value on bitcoin if you perceive it not to be secure enough for the amount of value you decide to put into it.

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Electricity is 90% of the cost to mine bitcoin. As such, bitcoin mining uses an exorbitant amount of power: somewhere between an estimated 30 terrawatt hours alone in 2017 alone. That’s as much electricity as it takes to power the entire nation of Ireland in one year.

Who gives any shits? Again it is decentralized and no one is being forced to mine bitcoin, but surely they are likely incentivized to search for the cheapest energy sources and to use that.. so there seem to be decent incentives in a kind of open market search for improving efficiencies in the search for less cost energy sources.

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: Bit coin has no future as a currency
First of all, you don't even know how to spell bitcoin, and second, bitcoin is not just a "currency" and third, you are likely to be wrong about the prospects of bitcoin. You can invest in it if you want, or you can remain a no coiner.

From your comments, I gather you are a no coiner? Have you ever owned any bitcoin? Are you getting paid for your nonsense spreading?

(06-27-2019, 05:17 PM)JayRothschild Wrote: and you're not a creditable source of information at all. What schooling do you have?

~ Stanford University BS/MS

Who cares about my level of schooling? You seem distracted. Also, for being so, supposedly, smart, you make a lot of dumb, lame, distracting and irrelevant arguments. You doing it on purpose? Seems so.
Sorry, I'm not interested in discussing technical information with some brain dead GED dropout. Do you see tech CEOs having substantial talks with taxi drivers and garbage men do you? Lol, get real. I spent 6 years digging into all formal programming methods, math set theory to db theory to CS languages to cpu architectures, and studied their flaws for why the future was not happening or at least the one I saw should have been happening. Everytime, it was always the same blindness. People start programming and they don't anticipate or generalize or even rationalize the architecture of the system to all anything dynamic and worse it is never checked for dynamic consistency... leading to a trapped "format" or "version" of data and protocols and lots of flaws.

See, this why you don't talk with low level people. They only see what is right in front of them... 


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