[Finance] The cryptocurrency (Bitcoin etc) thread

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

There were moved afoot to allow goods to be paid for by bitcoin. That would have made it a currency. Also NFTs were a spin off from Bitcoin, so it was on its way to becoming currency.

For better or worse (worse) Bitcoin is a legal currency in El Salvador

 

[usernamed]

It's similar to when people think NFTs are just jpgs of cartoon monkeys. There's a whole world of uses on the horizon that will create a brand new model of business and economy in the same way Amazon and ebay did.

That is one view. Another is that yet again the emperor is wearing no clothes.

 

[dsr-burnley]

True, neither is it an investment.

It's certainly an investment. Anything that you buy for the purpose of making money simply by holding it, is an investment by definition. Whether it's shares, pictures, gold, property, bitcoin, tulip bulbs, South Sea companies, or the first shares in IBM.

 

[dsr-burnley]

It's similar to when people think NFTs are just jpgs of cartoon monkeys. There's a whole world of uses on the horizon that will create a brand new model of business and economy in the same way Amazon and ebay did.

Have Amazon and Ebay created new models of business and economy? They're just shops, made bigger. Amazon is much like Argos but on the computer, and Ebay is a second hand shop/auctioneer. They vastly bigger and more efficient at finding the customers than the old systems were, but that's the same model made bigger and better because of the internet; it's not IMO a brand new model.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Have Amazon and Ebay created new models of business and economy? They're just shops, made bigger. Amazon is much like Argos but on the computer, and Ebay is a second hand shop/auctioneer. They vastly bigger and more efficient at finding the customers than the old systems were, but that's the same model made bigger and better because of the internet; it's not IMO a brand new model.

Ebay created virtual trust between private seller and buyer that didn't previously exist. Unless you often sent £20 in the post to someone hoping they'd send you the thing you hoped they would...

 

[Happy Exile]

That is one view. Another is that yet again the emperor is wearing no clothes.

The first shift we'll see from NFTs is in gaming and back to ownership. At the moment we have a subscription model for almost everything digital: the games we download to our drives, the skins kids buy for their characters in Fortnite that only last for as long as the next upgrade, the albums we listen to on Spotify but never own, the PayPerView boxing we watch on Sky, record and only have access too for as long as we've got a Sky subscription etc etc. NFTs will bring back digital rights, enable secondary markets for resale, and empower creators in the same way the App store suddenly created a whole new type of product for sale. Everyone wins - the games get a huge boost of longevity if almost infinite customisation is possible. Add in limited editions, proof of genuine for collectable physical items and so on and it's still only scratching the surface. I can see it coming to football - we're already digital and cashless, so it's an easy next step to give an NFT alongside your digital ticket for going to see the Carabao cup game away against Yeovil on a Wednesday night which then goes up in value and becomes collectable in the same way ticket stubs and programmes do etc. They could easily replace STH points for example as a mechanism for allocating priority. The US cinema chain AMC already gives NFTs to shareholders that then gives them priorities and I think even gifts at film screenings.

 

[Happy Exile]

Have Amazon and Ebay created new models of business and economy? They're just shops, made bigger. Amazon is much like Argos but on the computer, and Ebay is a second hand shop/auctioneer. They vastly bigger and more efficient at finding the customers than the old systems were, but that's the same model made bigger and better because of the internet; it's not IMO a brand new model.

It's an oft repeated truism that the world's largest book seller has no bookshops, the world's largest marketplace has no inventory, the world's largest private transport company has no vehicles, the world's largest accommodation provider has no property it rents out. It's hard to see them all as anything but new ways of doing business. It's not just bigger and more efficient, it's a totally shifted view of how industries can operate.

 

[El Presidente]

It's certainly an investment. Anything that you buy for the purpose of making money simply by holding it, is an investment by definition. Whether it's shares, pictures, gold, property, bitcoin, tulip bulbs, South Sea companies, or the first shares in IBM.

Presumably if I collect my pubes in a jar with the intention of selling them at a profit at a future date they could be considered to be an investment too?

 

[monty uk]

Presumably if I collect my pubes in a jar with the intention of selling them at a profit at a future date they could be considered to be an investment too?

You also have the option to short them.

 

[highflyer]

Ebay created virtual trust between private seller and buyer that didn't previously exist. Unless you often sent £20 in the post to someone hoping they'd send you the thing you hoped they would...

Well, yes, Quite often, When buying stuff from exchange and mart.

 

[drew]

The first shift we'll see from NFTs is in gaming and back to ownership. At the moment we have a subscription model for almost everything digital: the games we download to our drives, the skins kids buy for their characters in Fortnite that only last for as long as the next upgrade, the albums we listen to on Spotify but never own, the PayPerView boxing we watch on Sky, record and only have access too for as long as we've got a Sky subscription etc etc. NFTs will bring back digital rights, enable secondary markets for resale, and empower creators in the same way the App store suddenly created a whole new type of product for sale. Everyone wins - the games get a huge boost of longevity if almost infinite customisation is possible. Add in limited editions, proof of genuine for collectable physical items and so on and it's still only scratching the surface. I can see it coming to football - we're already digital and cashless, so it's an easy next step to give an NFT alongside your digital ticket for going to see the Carabao cup game away against Yeovil on a Wednesday night which then goes up in value and becomes collectable in the same way ticket stubs and programmes do etc. They could easily replace STH points for example as a mechanism for allocating priority. The US cinema chain AMC already gives NFTs to shareholders that then gives them priorities and I think even gifts at film screenings.

There's a big difference in a cinema giving away NFTs as tokens and people buying them as investments (or when the vendor is trying to sell them on the basis they will go up in value). I don't understand why you think an NFT will be given for going to a match. The digital record that you went already exists, a) buy the purchase of the ticket whether that is paper or digital and b) when the ticket is activated at the turnstile. Where is the benefit of replacing one digital loyalty point system with an NFT one?

There are a lot of people with a vested interest in pushing these. Especially when you start talking about secondary markets which just introduce a middle man that pushes up the price of everything to the punter.

 

[beorhthelm]

Have Amazon and Ebay created new models of business and economy? They're just shops, made bigger. Amazon is much like Argos but on the computer, and Ebay is a second hand shop/auctioneer. They vastly bigger and more efficient at finding the customers than the old systems were, but that's the same model made bigger and better because of the internet; it's not IMO a brand new model.

adding to above both also opend up a global marketplace direct to retail. so a factory in China, or a guy in Shoreham can sell anywhere. thats quite a big deal.

something we'll probably see is removal or reduced need for these platforms. cyrpto is peer-to-peer by default so you can remove middleman, for payment, product, arbritration etc. we havent seen the platform yet (well theres a few, but shite), matter of someone coming up with novel way to pull it all together.

 

[drew]

adding to above both also opend up a global marketplace direct to retail. so a factory in China, or a guy in Shoreham can sell anywhere. thats quite a big deal.

something we'll probably see is removal or reduced need for these platforms. cyrpto is peer-to-peer by default so you can remove middleman, for payment, product, arbritration etc. we havent seen the platform yet (well theres a few, but shite), matter of someone coming up with novel way to pull it all together.

As it's peer to peer doesn't that also remove the possibility of paying the relevant taxes for sales/exports etc etc?

 

[beorhthelm]

There's a big difference in a cinema giving away NFTs as tokens and people buying them as investments

there certainly is. need to stop thinking of "NFT" as a jpeg. those Punks and Bored Ape jpegs that people are buying for silly money are peice of digital art, that uses NFT and blockchain technology to prove provenance. match tickets are one alternative use case, admittedly one thats rather redundant as we have a good trust basis with the club. however it does provide better tech for transfers with control, transferable while enforcing rules and pricing for example. digital ownership for anything (music, e-books, software) can become transferable with royalties, a god send to the creative industry. obvs many might not like that so much but its a advantage for the artists.

As it's peer to peer doesn't that also remove the possibility of paying the relevant taxes for sales/exports etc etc?

with smart contracts, a fee can be paid to originator, or potentially any tax authorities, as you go. usually these are dealt with on trust/law though, the person or shop are expected to declare and pay taxes. imports have a bit of physical interface but mostly rely on declarations on digital paperwork still.

 

[usernamed]

The first shift we'll see from NFTs is in gaming and back to ownership. At the moment we have a subscription model for almost everything digital: the games we download to our drives, the skins kids buy for their characters in Fortnite that only last for as long as the next upgrade, the albums we listen to on Spotify but never own, the PayPerView boxing we watch on Sky, record and only have access too for as long as we've got a Sky subscription etc etc. NFTs will bring back digital rights, enable secondary markets for resale, and empower creators in the same way the App store suddenly created a whole new type of product for sale. Everyone wins - the games get a huge boost of longevity if almost infinite customisation is possible. Add in limited editions, proof of genuine for collectable physical items and so on and it's still only scratching the surface. I can see it coming to football - we're already digital and cashless, so it's an easy next step to give an NFT alongside your digital ticket for going to see the Carabao cup game away against Yeovil on a Wednesday night which then goes up in value and becomes collectable in the same way ticket stubs and programmes do etc. They could easily replace STH points for example as a mechanism for allocating priority. The US cinema chain AMC already gives NFTs to shareholders that then gives them priorities and I think even gifts at film screenings.

I’m not sure all your assumptions are justified.

1. Music - Some never left vinyl or CDs, and Bandcamp already exists. I do have a Spotify account, but as I keep pointing out to Bandcamp support, if they’d implement playlists properly in their app, I wouldn’t need to, and they’d do even better business with me. NFTs not really a consideration there.

2. Game subscriptions? Checked with my family and their unanimous answer was that they buy titles from Steam. They say what they buy is theirs and they can reinstall it on a different computer with no problems. So, NFT strikes me as a solution looking for a problem to solve. I know that Sony and Microsoft offer game passes, but it’s a stretch to say that subscription is the main method of video game consumption.

3. If you believe the purpose of NFTs is to strip commercial rights-holders of (often undeserved) privileges they enjoy and return them to the consumer, then I confidently predict that rights-holders will simply amend their T&Cs to take their existence into account, and ensure they retain control.

And that’s without getting into the general usefulness of ‘alternative blockchain currencies’ which as far as I can tell rely entirely on the ‘Greater Fool’ financial theory.

Power hungry (colossal energy waste in mining) Limited ability to spend them, horrible “maximum transaction” limits which make them unusable in mass consumer real world situations, and regulators closing in on all sides to subject them to the control and scrutiny that they’re really not getting at the moment.

 

[beorhthelm]

2. Game subscriptions? Checked with my family and their unanimous answer was that they buy titles from Steam. They say what they buy is theirs and they can reinstall it on a different computer with no problems. So, NFT strikes me as a solution looking for a problem to solve. I know that Sony and Microsoft offer game passes, but it’s a stretch to say that subscription is the main method of video game consumption.

most steam games are tied to steam, you cant play them without the client and your account. really its just a restrictive form of NFT without the name - your account and the games linked are non-fungible. in NFT land you could trade those games in a manner that bring royalties, though pointless imo. more interesting its the addons, game assets, that can be traded and exchanged at our demand.

looking for a problem to solve? heres one, you can trade shares on an NFT based platform without any counterparty risk. thats were we go back to the orgin of Bitcoin as a reaction to banking collapse. the idea of a currency failed imo (because its deflationary, so disincentive to spend tokens), however the development of blockchain and NFT could solve all issues around who owns what, whether they are solvent, etc, on a public ledger (or private but verifiable).

 

[dsr-burnley]

It's an oft repeated truism that the world's largest book seller has no bookshops, the world's largest marketplace has no inventory, the world's largest private transport company has no vehicles, the world's largest accommodation provider has no property it rents out. It's hard to see them all as anything but new ways of doing business. It's not just bigger and more efficient, it's a totally shifted view of how industries can operate.

New ways of doing business, and shifting views of how industries can operate - I don't dispute that. But they're still doing the same things that people always used to do - Airbnb has made renting property so much easier on both sides, but it hasn't invented the idea of renting property. Amazon has made mail order book ordering so much easier, but it hasn't invented the idea. (Read 22 Charing Cross Road!)

Bitcoin and its friends, on the other hand, are trying to change the principle of currency from one where it's organised and backed by governments to one where the government doesn't and can't get involved. It's a shift of principle that outweighs any shift of principle that your industry examples have done.

 

[CheeseRolls]

I’m not sure all your assumptions are justified.

1. Music - Some never left vinyl or CDs, and Bandcamp already exists. I do have a Spotify account, but as I keep pointing out to Bandcamp support, if they’d implement playlists properly in their app, I wouldn’t need to, and they’d do even better business with me. NFTs not really a consideration there.

2. Game subscriptions? Checked with my family and their unanimous answer was that they buy titles from Steam. They say what they buy is theirs and they can reinstall it on a different computer with no problems. So, NFT strikes me as a solution looking for a problem to solve. I know that Sony and Microsoft offer game passes, but it’s a stretch to say that subscription is the main method of video game consumption.

3. If you believe the purpose of NFTs is to strip commercial rights-holders of (often undeserved) privileges they enjoy and return them to the consumer, then I confidently predict that rights-holders will simply amend their T&Cs to take their existence into account, and ensure they retain control.

And that’s without getting into the general usefulness of ‘alternative blockchain currencies’ which as far as I can tell rely entirely on the ‘Greater Fool’ financial theory.

Power hungry (colossal energy waste in mining) Limited ability to spend them, horrible “maximum transaction” limits which make them unusable in mass consumer real world situations, and regulators closing in on all sides to subject them to the control and scrutiny that they’re really not getting at the moment.

My assumption is that you won't make a conscious decision to adopt any of this technology, but still you will when the convenience factor comes into play. At which point you will be hugely unimpressed and will wonder exactly what all the fuss was about.

 

[usernamed]

My assumption is that you won't make a conscious decision to adopt any of this technology, but still you will when the convenience factor comes into play. At which point you will be hugely unimpressed and will wonder exactly what all the fuss was about.

Well, if, as I suspect, the useful bits get baked in under the hood of the technology we use, and the less useful bits get quietly dropped, then yes.

I’m not saying there’s no merit anywhere in any of it, but certainly when you strip away the hype, I don’t see anything remarkably different to what a lot of organisations have already been doing for years.

As someone who saw “pump and dump” scams exist for decades on the smaller London markets, the cryptocurrencies in particular seem to me to rely largely on Greater Fool theory for their dramatic variations in price. There’s definitely money to be made (and lost) there, but it’s speculation not investment.

 

[Happy Exile]

There's a big difference in a cinema giving away NFTs as tokens and people buying them as investments (or when the vendor is trying to sell them on the basis they will go up in value). I don't understand why you think an NFT will be given for going to a match. The digital record that you went already exists, a) buy the purchase of the ticket whether that is paper or digital and b) when the ticket is activated at the turnstile. Where is the benefit of replacing one digital loyalty point system with an NFT one?

There are a lot of people with a vested interest in pushing these. Especially when you start talking about secondary markets which just introduce a middle man that pushes up the price of everything to the punter.

There's possibly no benefit to replacing a digital loyalty point system with an NFT one, or at least not one that'll appeal to everyone but it'll appeal to enough people especially those who make money from it - as you say, there are a lot of people with a vested interest. (Personally, I think it's a horror show in the context of football, but I think it's coming.) If every match has a unique token then over time you end with a big library that will appeal to some (not all, but enough) people: it's like a digital badge. There'll be people who'll love to post on Facebook and coming soon the metaverse that they were at such and such a game, show all their badges that verify that they did actually go and were actually there.

Go to a game, get an NFT and it boosts a player in your FIFA game maybe for the kids as an added bonus. Or a sponsor gives you a discount because your token is unfakeable and literally confirms you were there - or bought it off someone who was there. There'll be completists who'll go to games they might not otherwise. There'll be loads of people who don't care. There'll be others who'll go to big games purely for the resale value of an NFT - from the club perspective, release exclusive content or benefits with the token that's activated when you go through the turnstile...when you've got a game that might not sell out or where people might simply choose other priorities it's an added nudge if the token is only activated by the turnstile. You could also theme them - say we get to the FA Cup final. You could prioritise release of tickets to fans who have been to games through all the cup rounds if you wanted to because you're recording and recognising specific games through the tokens, not just on STH points so non-STH fans who still follow the club through thick and thin aren't excluded.

There's something ironic I think - I was looking recently at my paper Euro 96 tickets and thinking of the memories those stir, and also recognising that I have no paper tickets or record for two of the most enjoyable Albion matches I've been to of the past few years (beating Man City at home, then Man United). I'd love paper tickets for those games to go in the scrap book but they are things of the past. I can see the appeal of a unique digital souvenir given with a digital ticket simply because it's something "tangible" to go alongside the memories, even as I recoil from the idea for everything it represents. I'd never buy one, and the idea of a digital scrapbook seems a bit weird, but I'm not of the generation these are aimed at.