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Bitcoin Cash cryptocurrency meetup in Gustavia

This looks like a self serving advertisement to moi. Other like this have gone bye bye.
I have nothing to do with this event other than I think it's an interesting subject and Roger is quite the celebrity in the cryptocurrency world. Something happening on the island and free, even :)
 
funny you say that, I was just thinking about the first bank where I had an account as a child in Philly, Girard Trust and Corn Exchange...and my mother in law was telling us about how in the old days people here traded part of a goat for a chicken or two... barter works!
Have eaten goat a few times.
 
I think its a cool idea. As a holder of BCH i think teaching people about the eventually widespread adoption of crypto is important. He has nothing to gain and only is looking to spread awareness of this new new concept that is taking off like a rocket ship!

ps...miss my favorite island terribly...
 
Hopefully those who bought after the "meetup" had the inherent gamble in investing in cryptocurrency explained to them fully and didn't assume the recent trend would continue without risk and don't panic sell after the recent plummet in crypto value if they felt it was a wise long term investment. If they bought Bitcoin on May 6th (the date of the "meetup") the price was around $56,000. Today it's around $36,000 and fluctuating rapidly (it was as low as $28,000).
 
That's quite a return...:biglaugh:


Its an unfathomably staggering return. To state the obvious 5 to 5000 is a 1000x or 100,000% return. Around the time of the original post, bitcoin was ~ $50,000. Close enough to say your 5€ is 1/10,000 of a coin. The market cap of bitcoin today is somewhere around $750 billion. That times 1000 is $750 trillion. The estimated global net worth is $360 trillion. So for that type of return, bitcoin would be worth more than twice the value of everything on the planet.

:thinking1:

Cathie Wood as one of the more bullish professionals on bitcoin is calling for a high of $500,000 which is only 10x.
 
Its an unfathomably staggering return. To state the obvious 5 to 5000 is a 1000x or 100,000% return. Around the time of the original post, bitcoin was ~ $50,000. Close enough to say your 5€ is 1/10,000 of a coin. The market cap of bitcoin today is somewhere around $750 billion. That times 1000 is $750 trillion. The estimated global net worth is $360 trillion. So for that type of return, bitcoin would be worth more than twice the value of everything on the planet.

:thinking1:

Cathie Wood as one of the more bullish professionals on bitcoin is calling for a high of $500,000 which is only 10x.
You made one mistake in your calculation. The suggested 1000x return on the €5 was for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), not Bitcoin (BTC). The market cap for BCH is only $15 billion right now.
 
You made one mistake in your calculation. The suggested 1000x return on the €5 was for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), not Bitcoin (BTC). The market cap for BCH is only $15 billion right now.
$15 billion x 1,000 is still staggering and a silly prediction that was hopefully made in jest.

Full disclosure I own many cryptos including both BTC and BCH (not high $'s) so I am not in any way against purchasing them, but I knew the risks before I bought (I've owned Bitcoin since 2017). I hope those that bought at the recent highs understood this.
 
As we understand it, bitcoin, dogecoin and others at some point will be the world’s currency. Many people doubted Amazon- the more money it lost the more the stock price went up. Facebook is another example- people couldn’t figure out how it was going to monetize. The criticism of cryptocurrency is the value is whatever people decide it is. So are stock prices, the value of the U.S. dollar, Euro and so on.
 
As we understand it, bitcoin, dogecoin and others at some point will be the world’s currency. Many people doubted Amazon- the more money it lost the more the stock price went up. Facebook is another example- people couldn’t figure out how it was going to monetize. The criticism of cryptocurrency is the value is whatever people decide it is. So are stock prices, the value of the U.S. dollar, Euro and so on.

This popped up on facebook the other day:
Friends,
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin are all the rage these days, bolstered in part by the incessant tweeting of Elon Musk. Before you buy, here are 4 facts you may not know:
First, their price is easily manipulated. One negative word from a self-interested billionaire like Musk and the price plunges.
Two, they can be incredibly risky investments. Some cryptocurrencies — particularly smaller "altcoins" — are just "pump and dump" schemes, where the price is artificially inflated by bad actors and leaves unwitting consumers holding worthless cryptocoins.
Three, they can enable fraud and other illicit activities. Since October, cryptocurrency scams have soared 1000 percent and Americans have lost $80 million. This month, a ransomware group extorted nearly $5 million from the Colonial Pipeline Company, forcing it to shut down the biggest fuel pipeline in the U.S. before regaining access to its systems.
Four, they use up huge amounts of energy. Electricity demand for bitcoin is outpacing electricity consumption in several countries including Argentina.
My advice: don’t get near crypto. Companies should stop accepting them as payment. At least not until the Securities and Exchange Commission can catch up and enact much-needed regulations to protect users.
That's my view. What do you think?
Robert Reich
 
Hi Elgreaux,

that thing you quoted is quite negative and biassed. some is true, but skewed in perspective. The author is mostly wrong.

it claims they're facts but as usual the reality is more nuanced than that.

here's some comments.

This popped up on facebook the other day:
Friends,
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin are all the rage these days, bolstered in part by the incessant tweeting of Elon Musk. Before you buy, here are 4 facts you may not know:
First, their price is easily manipulated. One negative word from a self-interested billionaire like Musk and the price plunges.

this is true for anything liquid that you can buy including stocks, art, baseball cards and yes, including crypto etc. One positive or negative word from a celebrity can affect the price. thats the nature of the beast. as liquidity increase their influence becomes less.

there's a huge difference between bitcoin, which is in use and generally accepted to have value and a use case (albeit a limited one).. versus Dogecoin which has no use at all and was started as a joke and is being manipulated by celebrities and pump groups. they can't be lumped together in the same sentence like that. Its like comparing Amazon with a penny stock. They're both stocks but are completely different.

Two, they can be incredibly risky investments. Some cryptocurrencies — particularly smaller "altcoins" — are just "pump and dump" schemes, where the price is artificially inflated by bad actors and leaves unwitting consumers holding worthless cryptocoins.

This is true. ideally anything you invest in you should do your own research and kick the tyres. don't just buy it because its going up. If you want to be safer, stick to cryptocurrencies in the top 20 or so in the charts. the smaller ones outside of of the top 20 might have bigger gains but also bigger losses and significantly higher risks. www.coinmarketcap.com will show you the relative positions in the charts of all of the cryptocurrencies (there's thousands, most of which you should ignore until they make it big - just like stocks).

Three, they can enable fraud and other illicit activities. Since October, cryptocurrency scams have soared 1000 percent and Americans have lost $80 million. This month, a ransomware group extorted nearly $5 million from the Colonial Pipeline Company, forcing it to shut down the biggest fuel pipeline in the U.S. before regaining access to its systems.

this is kinda true but misleading. cryptocurrencies don't enable fraud or illicit activities any more than other currencies or payment methods will do. people do far more fraud with credit cards and wire transfers than they do with cryptocurrencies. Ponzi schemes were literally invented using dollars. Madoff didn't use crypto. Crypto related crimes just make the press because they're newsworthy. If you're a criminal, you really ought to think twice before doing crimes with crypto as the 'paper trail' is very extensive (blockchain data never goes away), so you can be traced far easier if you use bitcoin than if you used dollars. Most crypto isn't anonymous.

Four, they use up huge amounts of energy. Electricity demand for bitcoin is outpacing electricity consumption in several countries including Argentina.

This is a sweeping generalisation thats untrue. 'They' is a bad word to use. Some crypto currencies use a lot of energy - especially the earlier ones that were invented before newer technologies were proven out - and some don't use much energy at all. If you care about which ones use a lot of energy, then factor that into your investment criteria on which to include in your portfolio. Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash, do use a lot of energy (and its correlated to their value, if they rise, so will their energy consumption). They will argue they mainly use renewables, and that over time they will move more towards that. And some newer cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum, have always had a plan to switch from 'Proof of Work' (burning a lot of energy) into 'Proof of Stake' where they don't, and the big upgrade is happening later this year. And some newer blockchains already use various forms of 'Proof of Stake'.

To summarise the difference, Proof of Work blockchains (and cryptocurrencies) require the burning of energy to help secure the network - and its simple and effective, whereas Proof of Stake blockchains uses bonds of actual money put up by the users to prove their legitimacy, paid for in the actual crypto currency that they will lose if they do something malicious. Think of it like a 'security deposit'. A far more efficient system, but much more complex to perfect this technology. Research in Proof of Stake has evolved massively over the last decade and its finally being perfected, so expect a lot of value to shift towards Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies over the coming years, as people become more disillusioned with the high power consumption of the earlier blockchains. Those that claim they will never change or evolve and thats 'their strength', are doomed to fail over the long-term, in my humble opinion.

My advice: don’t get near crypto. Companies should stop accepting them as payment. At least not until the Securities and Exchange Commission can catch up and enact much-needed regulations to protect users.
That's my view. What do you think?
Robert Reich

To ignore the potential gains (in the thousands of %) in carefully investing in the right cryptocurrencies over the right length of time would be insane. There isn't an asset class anywhere on the planet that can give you the returns that crypto can give you - if you're careful and patient, and help change the world at the same time.

There's a category of crypto called meme coins which were largely started as a joke or to be popular for the sake of it. these include most of the dog related coins like Dogecoin and Shiba-coin etc. best avoid those. they really are 'just gambling', and groups of people are manipulating them. Those really are pump'n'dumps.

My own strategy is to focus on the crypto thats actually being used. that has high and growing numbers of users, and plenty of applications, and lots of developers working on the protocols as well as on the applications and use cases. that largely rules out most of the crypto in the charts (including bitcoin, and dogecoin). there's very few I would consider investing in, for the long term.

Best think of it like the Dotcom tech cycle. a lot of **** companies did IPOs and got a lot of cash, most of which they squandered with dumb ideas. But out of that crazy marketplace, a few have succeeded and changed the world. The google's, amazon's, Paypal's, Ebay's, would not exist if it wasn't for that tech boom & bust cycle. its going to be the same with blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies. A few will succeed in the longtime and most others will go spectacularly bust.

cryptocurrencies go through massive boom and bust cycles. they're extremely high risk but also have potential for very high rewards. don't bother doing it and looking on a day to day basis. they go up and down each day by huge swings. if you do invest in crypto, only use money you can afford to lose and stick at it for years. you could be well rewarded.

Look for good entry points, when the prices have just tumbled... like they just did a few days ago. could be a good time to be brave and dip your toe in the water.
 
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