I had no idea. Do you have something that you can share? I have been under the impression that human trafficking as not a growth industry, but you may have opened my eyes to something that I’ve obviously been missing!
'38Packard
Saudi Arabia and UAE basically run their economies on low paid labor from South East Asia. The worst of it could certainly be described as human trafficking.
intercst
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@intercst - thanks for the link. Interesting information!
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So why only partially quote me?
You look at the charts. You look at the yields. You look out forward at the news. You look at the patterns for similar economic activity over the last hundred years.
Most people wont do that. Knowing up from down is not easy for most people in the markets. Because loving having wealth is one thing. Holding through the down times is another.
The issue feeling rich is one thing staying rich is another.
That is not exactly true. Gold is a store of value. They are mining more of it. It is heavy to tote around. BTC crosses borders etc easily. BTC is fragmented easily. BTC on larger transactions has a lower gas cost as a percentage than a credit card. Using a Credit card for a $50k charitable donation would cost more in fees than using the dollar equivalent of BTC in gas as fees.
Side note, I am not an expert in TA but have watched the charts for a longer time. If you invest look at charts. You do not need to be any sort of TA guru at all. But you get oriented in the markets. You can not understand the markets on a daily numbers basis without a chart or two.
It is also a way to get caught. The FBI now routinely looks at the blockchain ledger to know who did what. To get a wallet you need to fully identify yourself and your bank or card. People are not getting off using BTC. The libertarians are pi$$ed. The idea was big brother would not know your tax burden. That is not true at all. Instead there is a huge trail.
A USD is anonymous not BTC or Eth. The USD has no security and is printed wildly by counterfeiters. The treasury kind of likes it we get dollars a lower cost from counterfeiting.
Talking USD. Your SS number and stuff is available to the hackers who will want to use it. There are no digital secrets. BoA or Wells and many other of the biggest financials will let your identity be stolen. They wont lift a finger to stop it. Online to open an account at any of them no license is needed.
BTC you need to provide your own security. You can not buying without securing your ID to gain a wallet to use.
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That part is easy. There are no yields.
You can save even more fees by writing a check. But you’re assuming the charity wants Bitcoin in the first place. Wikipedia Foundation used to accept crypto donations, but last year they concluded wasn’t worth the hassle and stopped. They still accept credit cards, Paypal, Amazon Pay, and G Pay.
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Saudi Arabia’s and UAE’s economies run on oil and gas, a very capital intensive, low labor industry. The imported labor is used mainly for menial jobs like maids and dishwashers, not to run the economies. I’m not denying the possibility of human trafficking, just the characterization of their employment practices. The oil rich don’t like to get their hands dirty doing laundry and taking out garbage.
Venezuela had a similar economy. The hard cash was coming from oil exports and it was construction that mostly spread the wealth to the masses. When dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez was deposed in 1958 the incoming socialist regime decided to stop the ‘white elephant’ construction projects but soon realized that they had to build up the construction industry. The incoming ex-communist president, Romulo Betancourt, was a very smart man and he did the switch back to construction. Exiled in Costa Rica, his wife owned or ran a pharmacy. Maybe that’s where he saw the benefits of capitalism. That’s my hunch.
The Captain
One day, while eating Mexican food in a Caracas restaurant, I saw an unexpected sight. In a corner of the outdoor terrace was ex-president Romulo Betancourt with just his chauffeur, enjoying some tacos.
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I don’t believe I misrepresented what you said. If I did, my apologies.
Even in a digital world, scarcity does not imply value unless there is a corresponding demand.
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That is why BTC and Eth are fragmented and NFTs are non fungible.
Much of the content will continue to have no value. Like day old news used as fish wrapping paper.
Some artists though coin money just about literally.
I was talking the markets in general which go by yields. I just had that part of this discussion elsewhere on the general markets.
BTC and Eth do have yields. But that topic is much more speculative as it applies to cryptos. But in a bull market or manic market there are two forms of yields. The mining of more btc is a yield of sorts and the loaning of btc has yields.
BTC and Eth have some of the very best yields in the world. Some of the worst volatility and risk as well.
It is important to note when the costs of mining are higher than the market price that does not mean a loss has been locked in. Within a year the crypto market can be in a manic phase.
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The miners get to keep all those yields for themselves, right? They don’t share them with you. And yes, you can loan your BTC, but that is a high risk/low reward proposition. Sort of like saying there are yields for playing roulette.
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Not sure I follow you Syke. Why would that be like playing roulette? (Just talking BTC not any other crypto)
Andy
Lending requires you giving up control of your Bitcoin to a third party, like FTX, BlockFi, Voyager, Celsius, Hodlnaut, Binance, etc. It is like roulette in that there’s no guarantee you will ever get your Bitcoin back, and in many cases you don’t. It is unlike roulette in that “winning” results in very little upside.
And it is even worse than that. Let’s say you made money staking on an exchange and then smartly withdrew your money. Later the exchange goes bankrupt. Your gains can be clawed back by the government as part of the bankruptcy proceeding. Money you make on crypto exchanges is never really yours.
Worth reading some comments on the Celsius Reddit forum. Those poor people have been going through agony for months. All because they decided to stake crypto for a couple more percent than the bank pays.
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Ok so that is people on the Celsius platform, but I didn’t see anything about Coinbase. So I would say it makes a difference who you are staking with.
Never? I have never seen Coinbase claw back any returns, also there seems to be a sunset clause in there of 90 days.
** The customers who withdrew their crypto assets before the bankruptcies risk having to return the withdrawals. Generally, the bankruptcy code allows the debtor to claw back transfers of the debtor’s property within 90 days before the bankruptcy filing if the debtor was insolvent at the time of the transfer.**
Also you would probably be wise to get an attorney if the exchange you are on goes bankrupt. Sometimes the crypto is yours and sometimes it isn’t depending on what you signed.
The agreements between the debtor and its customers typically address ownership. Some state the customer retains ownership of the cryptocurrency. Others give ownership to the debtor. However, even if the agreement states the customer retains ownership, the ownership could be defeated if the cryptocurrency is not specifically identifiable and is commingled with cryptocurrency belonging to other customers.
Andy
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I would also say it makes a difference. I was just using Celsius as an example of what can go wrong. Coinbase might be perfectly fine as far as I know. But everyone thought FTX was on the up and up, until it turned out they weren’t even in the same solar system as up and up. All I’m saying is there is uncompensated risk associated with Bitcoin staking.
It should be noted that Coinbase is currently being sued by the SEC. There might not be fire, but there is a bit of smoke.
I was taught that where there is smoke, there is fire…
'38Packard
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Neither of those were publicly traded. Not to say they couldn’t be crooks trading on the Market but I think it does make a difference. The lawsuit against Coinbase will get ironed out but has to do with what coins are securities, not about their business per se. But I think it has been confirmed that Bitcoin is not a security, so it does matter what you are staking also.
Andy
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I was up front there are risks involved.
I was up front there are yields.
If you are worried about risks in an investment class skip it. I am not investing in Cryptos. But to say they will all fail? C’mon! That is not a well studied approach to the markets.
The bears are eventually right but so are the bulls. Each takes their turn. The crypto bear is getting old. This is not over at all.
The bigger news on why BTC and Eth are on their cycle the BTC halving is coming up. That means we go from you can have plenty for these four years and the last two years the supply is too good to now you can only mine half as much and the supply tightens up.
Each time the supply tightens up the market prices are much higher than the previous cycle. Finding price support at the top of the previous cycle.
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I haven’t seen anyone say they will all fail. I have seen some (including me) say they are all pretty much useless, at least so far.
But then there are lots of things that are useless that people use: Google Wallet, Chase Blink, Beanie Babies, and of course, disco. Of course sometimes it takes years and years before a commercial application is apparent for an invention: the airplane, fax machines, and so on.
But for the moment, lots of people rushed in to crypto (NFT’s, too) without much understanding of what they’re good for, which is, um, not much.
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