Cryptocurrency

[ChimpMaster]

Me too. This crypto business takes over your life otherwise.

Scoots what happens to tokens bought in ICOs. Taking BABB for example, I paid with ETH from MEW so does that mean that the BABB coins will be credited to my MEW ETH address?

[scooterscot]

I doubt they'll push out coins.

With other ICO's I've bought into I need do nothing as you're given a wallet with which you're free to do as you please that contains both public and secret keys. BABB being an ECR20 token.. I imagine one day we're free to log in and send it to an ETH address of our choosing.

[Hobosapien]

With so many ICOs being ECR20 based will it affect the ETH price one way or another as they come online and start hammering the ETH blockchain network?

Or is it more like how the uptake of the Ripple network doesn't necessarily mean XRP will benefit from it?

i.e. is there any benefit being invested in the coins if the network behind them becomes increasingly popular, when the network usage is not restrained to actually using the coins?

[FarangMau]

Wepower

Wepower (WPR) tokens are going for not much more than the price they were during the ICO at present (also, the ICO had a max 0.2 ETH contribution cap) in case anyone has boots to fill (Scooter ?)

[Hobosapien]

Panorama tonight: Who Wants To Be A Bitcoin Millionaire?

Tonight at 8:30 on BBC1.

Bitcoin is the world's leading virtual currency, but unlike real money, it is not backed by a government or properly regulated. Bitcoin is exchanged and held digitally by users - which is attractive to criminals selling drugs, pornography and arms. But now Bitcoin is moving into the mainstream and being openly marketed as an investment opportunity.

Panorama investigates what Bitcoin is and what it means, going inside a Bitcoin mine in Iceland - where currency is made - and spending time with the Bitcoin millionaires of Silicon Valley. The programme also hears from others who have been scammed out of their life savings and investors who think the cryptocurrency is an enormous scam and that the writing is on the wall.

In Britain, and around the world, authorities are sounding the alarm that Bitcoin is too risky - is it too late, or too crazy, to try to become a Bitcoin millionaire?

SELL! SELL! SELL!

[SunnyInHades]

New Bitcoin related report (71 page 'Bitcoin Bible') just published by JPMorgan USA - yes, the very same JPMorgan who's CEO, Jamie Dimon, called Bitcoin a fraud a few months ago and threatened any employee who mentioned it with an immediate pink slip. Was Dimon's statement a clever 'poop and scoop' ?

"DEFINITION of 'Poop And Scoop'
An attempt to push down a stock by spreading false information and rumors.
If they are successful, they can purchase the stock at bargain prices, as the overall marketplace will have sold off the
security, causing the price to fall dramatically."



Executive Summary

Introduction
J.P. Morgan researchers from across a wide range of expertise analyze various aspects of Cryptocurrency (CC) to gain insight on this market and its potential evolution in this report. CCs’ extremely rapid growth, and then fall, both in terms of number of CCs and prices and their challenge to the current financial infrastructure, are forcing all market participants to closely monitor and understand this new market.
Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that are created, stored and governed electronically by an open, decentralized, cryptography system. CCs can be used to exchange money, to buy certain goods/services or as an investment. There are over 1,500 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of some $400bn as of February 8, 2018, with Bitcoin being the largest representing a third of the market according to CoinMarketCap.
Launched in early 2009, Bitcoin (BTC) is the dominant cryptocurrency with a market cap of $140 billion (representing one-third of the CC market) and nearly 17 million BTC units in circulation (capped at 21 million). Bitcoin was the first major cryptocurrency and has spawned many competing CCs and technologies, many of which still fall back to Bitcoin as a support currency. Bitcoin itself has split into two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, to improve liquidity.

Technology
Cryptocurrencies are the face of the innovative maelstrom around the Blockchain technology that is bringing both massive price volatility and a constant trial-and-error of new product try-outs and failures.
CCs are unlikely to disappear completely and could easily survive in varying forms and shapes among players who desire greater decentralization, peer-to-peer networks and anonymity, even as the latter is under threat. The underlying technology for CCs could have the greatest application in areas where current payments systems are slow, such as across borders, as payment, reward tokens or funding systems for other Blockchain innovations and the Internet of Things, as well as parts of the underground economy.

Applications
There are over 1,500 CCs with a market cap of $400bn. Transactions in the three largest CCs average $550bn per month and come mostly from individuals. Ownership is highly concentrated. The opportunity set around direct CC trading appears relatively limited for banks, while the two Bitcoin futures recently launched are seeing only $140mn in daily trading.
Blockchain saw its first expression through Bitcoin – the first CC – but is more likely to ultimately see its greatest application outside of CCs across other financial and non-financial transactions, even as Blockchain itself looks set to evolve fast as the market learns about what works best.
There is the potential for increased usage of Blockchain in cross-border payments, settlement/clearing/collateral management as well as the broader world of TMT, Transportation and Healthcare but only where any cost efficiencies offset regulatory, technical and security hurdles.
Hedge funds have been moving into this market making up most of the 175 CC funds but AUM remains only a few billion dollars. Asset managers are experiencing limited success in bringing products to market and have not been able to launch CC funds or ETFs without support from the SEC or major distributors.
While about half of the early CC transactions happened in the underground economy, the share of this is declining, with investing and speculation now taking a much larger share.

Challenges
It will be extremely hard for CCs to displace and compete with government-issued currencies, as dollars to euros and yuan are virtual natural monopolies in their regions and will not easily give up their seigniorage profits.
CCs are experiencing heightened volatility and will face challenges from both technology (such as rising mining costs and hacking) and regulators who are concerned about anti-money laundering and investor protection, as CC payments are irreversible and there is no recourse.
Security concerns have mounted in Bitcoin exchanges as hackers have infiltrated a number of CC exchanges generating large losses, while regulators are challenging anonymity.

Observations
Given the amount of speculation in these markets, technical signals can be very useful in gauging market direction and they have been sending the right signals in recent months

Given the hurdles, CCs are more likely to be used as ancillary payment methods rather than gaining traction as a primary source of exchange.

While seeing a potential for the deployment of the underlying Blockchain technology in payments, we do not see cryptocurrencies competing with central bank-issued money for lawful transactions.

given the huge returns from running a central bank (seigniorage), governments will be quite possessive of their legal tender role and will likely put up a fight if CCs were to gain broader traction domestically.

CCs could potentially have a role in diversifying one’s global bond and equity portfolio

Extraordinary returns can be generated in the price discovery phase, only to be followed by several years of mean-reversion toward the eventual, long-term average level.

[SunnyInHades]

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Manager's Fee: 3%

[stonehenge]

Manager's Fee: 3%

Actually, in the grand scheme of things, 3% is nothing in the mad world of crypto. They can move 3% in the blink of an eye.

[VirtualMonkey]

ETC seems to be doing well at the moment. Massive bullish run as expected due to the upcoming airdrop.
Is anyone preparing to sell after the air drop? I expect we'll see a big sell off when it happens.
Might even see a retracement before then as we seem to be at or near the top of wave 5.

[Lockhouse]

Is anyone doing CLN today?