I understand all that. None of that makes crypto especially important or significant, relative to the national economy. There’s literally millions of cardholders that use and millions of merchants that accept the Discover Card (to pick a roughly same-sized financial enterprise). If Congress decided to ban the Discover Card, it would cause inconvenience - and obviously massive economic harm to the Discover Bank and its business counterparties. But Congress could do that without materially affecting the national economy. Easily.
The same is true of crypto. If Congress passed a regulation that barred or crippled the use of crypto in most circumstances, it would certainly be bad for the folks who installed those crypto ATM’s. But so what? There were hundreds of thousands of cigarette vending machines across the U.S. at one point, in nearly every bar and restaurant. More than there are crypto ATM’s. Then the FDA banned them in nearly all circumstances (after several states did so first). That was hard for the vending machine owners, and cost the establishment owners some easy rent money. But that didn’t stop it from happening when the government finally made up its mind to all-but-end that practice.
It might cause problems for companies like Tesla that would have to divest themselves of their crypto holdings. But nothing insurmountable. Sure, Congress would consider those likely negative effects in deciding whether to pass such a regulation - but that’s true of almost every type of regulation. Not because crypto is just too big to regulate.
Sounds good. Any predictions on what the most significant new business we’ll see developing around Crypto in the coming year? As I mentioned upthread, almost all of the economic activity around crypto has been enabling people to speculate on the value of tokens - platforms like Coinbase and OpenSea that are used to trade and lend those tokens. Those services have been pretty well established. What’s the next one?
Can you give us a real-world example? Is there some sort of BNPL scheme that works better with crypto? Is there some sort of security trading vehicle that works better with crypto? Is there some sort of electronic bank that works better with crypto? etc? What’s the SoFi of crypto?
Of course it is. That’s why I was asking for specifics. Fintech is enormous, and the only tiny slice of it that I recall discussing with you was remittances. We never really talked about Chainlink - you mentioned and linked an article about it as an example of a crypto business, but never really got into details (they’re a “picks and shovels” company, right, doing oracle software for blockchains?). You never really got into what they actually do or why they’re important (other than helping people, as I mentioned upthread, successfully speculate on tokens).
I guess my reason for asking a further question can be best illustrated by another question: can you give an example of a crypto business that wouldn’t be categorized as fintech? It’s rather an enormously broad term, after all.
Again, just curious what you thought the next (or rather, first) big thing with crypto might be - and “fintech” is just so enormously broad that it’s not really much to go on.
Yes but it is much smaller than what I actually first said. I can’t be sure exactly what they are going into because there is so much innovations coming in this space.
Which fintechs that are using crypto would you invest in today? After all, getting in early is the key to outsize returns (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc) for companies that will experience massive growth.
There isn’t one Mark, I am not trying to tell anyone what to invest in, rather I am trying to bring up information on the technology. The feedback has helped me to understand this technology. I feel I have a better understanding of it now than I did 6 months ago.
My “better understanding” is that the arm waving is going into overdrive, but Bitcoin is off by 65%, other cryptocurrencies are off even more, that “blockchain” is a really cool technology that no one has a significant use for yet (except to make more blockchain, apparently), and that the best minds in “fintech” still don’t have a concrete application for any of this, except to get more people to invest in it because, FOMO.
I invested in AOL in 1995 and Cisco too, because I had some idea of what their technologies might lead to. (To make sure this is not a ‘glory me’ post, I also bought Lucent and @Home for the same reason. Right technologies, wrong companies.)
Here we are, a decade or so later, and nobody can give a straight answer to “what is crypto good for” except “buying more crypto”, and blockchain looks like a vastly energy intensive Vis-A-Calc that everybody can see, always. OK.
Meanwhile crypto has failed to make any significant roads into the consumer space, companies have dabbled but mostly held back, and the number of corporations dropping blockchain increases as daily as the calendar count.
So yeah, I have “a different conclusion” too. Of course I’m always willing to change my mind, as I did with AOL and Cisco when the string ran out, and I’ll keep watching, but until the hand-waving becomes a concrete product or process that seems likely to advance its acceptance, I’ll just be quietly here on the sidelines.
Now there is 4 long term losers, no wonder you are so gun shy. Cisco still hasn’t made it back to it’s highs in 1999. I would stick to bonds too if I was you.
You’re new here. I first bought AOL in ‘94, more in ‘95, and even more in ‘96. Same with Cisco. Then I sold everything in ‘99/‘20 and made a bloody fortune. I lost $25k on @Home and about the same on Lucent, and that wasn’t even a rounding error on my taxes the next year. I wrote about it at the time (as I did before fleeing the market in 2008), but that’s all in the wind now that the Fool has closed the archive. Too bad.
Yes but it is much smaller than what I actually first said. I can’t be sure exactly what they are going into because there is so much innovations coming in this space.
I am not saying this is th same, but I a reminded of a discussion I had with an entrepreneur back in the ‘80’s, who was investing heavily in disco. (True story.) I told him it was a fad, or perhaps a phase, that music trends last a few years and then move on.
“Not this one”, he told me. Look at all the investments that people are making: the clubs, the lights, the sound systems. “Look at all the people dancing! That’s never going away.” Sometimes things seem like they’re the next big thing and they turn out not to be, or they flash and then are gone. The Apple Newton. Yes, Beanie Babies (at one time they made up 30% of all transactions on eBay!). Segway. Napster. Betamax. My Space. AltaVista. Not to mention @Home and a bunch of other stuff from 90’s history.
Disco. Cisco. Crypto. Not a perfect rhyme, but close enough for now.
I wonder what you consider new? I think from what you are saying, everyone on these boards are new. Why does everyone make a killing because they sold just in time?
Only that is your mistake Goofy, no where am I telling anyone to invest in Crypto. In fact I have made it very clear that I don’t know anything about Crypto.
A clever entrepreneur has found a use case for NFT’s! NFT prices are plummeting and trading volume is evaporating:
According to the Nonfungible.com market tracker, 144,000 NFTs were sold for $142m (£118m) on 16 January 2022. This Wednesday, there were 17,000 sales for $28,000 (£23,294).
leaving many speculators left holding worthless NFTs that can’t be sold at any price. But a solution has emerged:
Now – alongside the broader crypto market – the appetite for NFTs is so diminished that a specialized market has sprung up for collectors looking to sell off their once-valuable “digital collectibles” as tax losses to offset their income tax bills.
A recently launched service, Unsellable, aims to help collectors do exactly that. Think of it as a distressed asset fire sale.
“While every investment class has its losers, many of the NFTs we invested in were not only down big; they were now totally worthless … illiquid … unsellable,” the service says on its website.
Unsellable will buy your NFT for a penny, and charge $4 in fees. The upside is that you now have a recorded loss, which presumably can be written off as a loss on your taxes. I strongly recommend someone check with a tax attorney before doing this, but this guy anyway has found a way to make money in the NFT market.
