Quote from: TPTB_need_war on April 21, 2016, 10:24:26 PM

Probably nobody here wants to read this viewpoint:

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on April 21, 2016, 10:22:19 PM

Quote from: e-coinomist on April 21, 2016, 09:23:11 PM

So, what will happen?

Back in 2013 we had Mt.Gox running on fractional/damaged reserve, so there had been more BTC available in trades than BTC total in existance and it did not matter because there was money inflow from the outsides. This year is more solid regarding those issues, just completely isolated market.

The 850,000 Bitcoins stolen (200,000 recovered) from Mt. Gox were roughly 8% of the coin supply. What was likely happening is this supply was employed to manipulate the float on Mt. Gox (buying from yourselves, etc) in order to drive a massive bubble..since 70% of all Bitcoin traded through Mt.Gox.

Given ASICs had come online, miners didn't need to sell as many coins to pay electricity.

The mass media was pumping Bitcoin up every day.

We probably don't have the level of upward price manipulation now. Sorry.

Edit: altcoins became the way to have the float tied up in one or two exchanges (e.g. Ethereum) so the insiders could manipulate the price. Crypto-currency is all about the scams.

Quote from: e-coinomist on April 21, 2016, 09:23:11 PM

Nobody invests into BTC or mining equipment anymore. When did you bought ASICs valued 10.000 USD last time? Aren't those USD you now use to buy BTC just been taken from former BTC sales?

Bitcoin cannot do without Alts, both built up a complete whole economy. Remember people are not buying/selling anything using BTC, they just gamble on Alts. Basically I do agree on BTC up causing Alts going down and vice verse. Enclosed system like two water tanks with a flexible tube connecting them.

This is true. Most people don't want to trade their BTC for a non-CC asset, because this their gambling money. They can't buy mining equipment with BTC to increase their holdings of crypto-currency. This is why ICOs have become more popular than mined distribution, with the ASIC resistant Monero as an exception.

ASICs killed the mining ecosystem. This has been r0ach's point, that if the coins don't circulate, then the ecosystem dies. Bitcoin is dying. Only the altcoin circulation kept Bitcoin alive.

Sorry I see Bitcoin as very vulnerable. No new money is coming in. A global contagion can force some large whales to liquidate to cover their ass in other illiquid loans and investments.

Prepare for the crash.

I actually for the most part agree with it. I have been a Bitcoin bear for a while simply because I do not like the long term fundamentals. The biggest issue is the 1 MB blocksize issue and the proposals being thrown around are simply too little too late. There is a reason new venture capital is not moving into Bitcoin and that is simply that venture capital demands the possibility of very high growth because of the risk involved. The 1 MB blocksize limit is simply making stagnation part of the Bitcoin protocol and consensus model. I can think of no more effective way to drive venture capital away than to make stagnation an integral part of the Bitcoin protocol and consensus model.

While ASIC centralization is part of he problem, I would argue that were it not for the blocksize limit this alone is not to blame. The issue is that while China is by far the most cost effective place to manufacture ASICs and it also scores well in the electricity and climate are (parts of Northern China do get very cold in the winter) it has a very high latency Internet connectivity to the rest of the world due to the Great Firewall of China. A mid range residential Internet connection in many parts of the world will run circles over the best data centre grade Internet connection behind the Great Fire Wall of China in the mining critical area of latency. What has allowed the centralization in Bitcoin mining to occur is not just ASICs but the combination of a 10 min blocktime with a 1 MB blocksize limit together with ASICs. If Bitcoin had allowed the blocksize to grow back in 2012 - 2013, the Chinese ASIC manufacturer's would have been forced to sell their ASICs for export rather than operate them themselves locally and this would have prevented the concentration of Bitcoin mining in China. We must keep in mind the the Chinese miners are against any significant blocksize increase in Bitcoin for this very reason.

Even if someone developed an ASIC for CryptoNite that was truly competitive, I doubt the kind of mining concentration that has occurred in Bitcoin could happen In Monero simply because China would still be by far the most competitive place to manufacture the ASICs, but the combination of 2 min blocks and an adaptive blocksize limit would make China a very un-competitive place to operate the ASICs.