Posted on 02/28/2024 5:47:31 AM PST by Enlightened1
If complex hashing algorithms are hacked, Bitcoin will be the least of our problems. Literally nothing would be secure; national security and power grids, defense networks, all banks, all global stock exchanges, air traffic control, dams, satellites...everything.
If hashing algorithms are hacked by some magical computer or alien technology, you probably won't be on your laptop peacefully having discussions with people. There will be other things on your mind, like survival.
Exchanges have been hacked, and some people’s wallets have been hacked, but not Bitcoin itself.
The difference between a bet and an investment is time.
Bets are settled quick while investments are for a long time.
Time is not the element.
I have bought items because I knew their worth and flipped it the next day because I knew value and a buyer.
Risk and reward are key. I don’t buy lottery tickets or bitcoin because it is a gamble. I have no control of the “investment” But that is me.
Investment is managing risk and reward. I have been sold too many hot “investments” in my time. Paid for my education. You will get your paid education also.
You really need to study the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. It does require deep thinking.
You really need to think about Bit coin. It was sold as a medium of exchange. Yet everyone like YOU view it as a lottery ticket/rare tulip. There is a disconnect.
Not your keys, not your crypto. If people haven't learned that lesson by now, I have no sympathy.
Use an exchange to buy if you have to, but either have it sent directly to your non-custodial wallet, or move it immediately.
Who created the algorithms?
Could they have been created to be purposely “hacked” by government agencies?
Anything created by man can be destroyed. (Magic or aliens mocking)
No, you’re thinking of encryption, not hashing. There’s a difference.
Hashing has no encryption key and can’t be reverse engineered by brute force. You’re up against mathematical laws.
You could try to brute force a 256-bit hash. If you constructed an application to attempt one combination per microsecond, it would take you approximately 10^63 years to get one collision.
Don't know about you, but I really don’t have that much spare time.
A microsecond is really slow for networked supercomputers.
I don’t have the time, but state sponsored Intelligence Agencies do.
You’re pompous with your math and certainty. As I said, we’ll revisit.
I don’t have the time, but state sponsored Intelligence Agencies do.
Haha! Ok, sure. Perhaps Intelligence Agencies' supercomputers can decrease the collision time from 10^63 down to 10 trillion years. I'm sure they'll get right on that.
You’re pompous with your math and certainty. As I said, we’ll revisit.
Yes, math has a way of being pompous and arrogant.
You know about stocks, right? You buy and sell them when you want at the market price to convert them to dollars. Except that the stock market is only open during banking hours (basically), and stocks are only listed on a few exchanges. With cryptocurrency the markets are open 24/7 and major crypto like bitcoin is on hundreds or thousands of exchanges. It isn’t difficult. Just open an account with a crypto exchange, link it to your checking account to fund it just like you would with a stock brokerage, and trade for whatever you want.
In a nutshell here’s why bitcoin has value and the dollar is circling the drain, not the reverse:
1. Bitcoin is scarce. There can only be 21 million total and the release schedule is known. By contrast dollars are not scarce and they are created at the whim of the Federal Reserve (however well intentioned).
2. Bitcoin is impossible to counterfeit, unlike dollars. The ledger makes it clear who has how much bitcoin and only the holder of a private key can send bitcoin from one address to another.
3. Bitcoin does not need audits due to the robust cryptography underlying it, unlike the centralized ledgers used by banks.
4. Bitcoin is free of censorship - you can send payment anywhere and to anyone with their public key. No middleman or government can stop you from sending/receiving it (short of hauling you off to prison).
5. There are no barriers to entry with cryptocurrency besides having a smartphone/computer. By contrast fees and minimum balances and so forth keep much of the planet unbanked or paying heavily to transact.
6. Layer-2 solutions and other methods allow bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to keep transaction fees down to a microscopic level (or free, re: NANO), no matter where in the world you are sending your funds.
7. Transactions take only a few seconds (or less) to minutes, again, even if crossing national boundaries since those don’t exist in crypto.
We could go on, but these alone make it clear that bitcoin is simply better money. Critics who think dollars/euros etc. will survive are delusional.
Do you at least understand the financial markets and the approval of ETFs* for BTC which has been declared an Asset (same class as gold, only less abundant).
We have moved from Tulips to Digital-Gold. Actually, outflows from the Gold ETFs are moving into BTC ETFs.
*I don’t like ther ETFs as they will eventually lead to the governments of the world having some or enough regulatory legal mechanisms to manipulate it. However, that will not happen for at least 20-years.
You have no interest and your disapproval is simply a function of being proven wrong. What is the big investors say, never bet against the USG.
If you have any mutual funds they will soon have a 1-3% minimum allocation in BTC ETFs.
BTC has already surpassed all ETF expectations for the year in about two months of existance. The inflow of capital is astonishing.
Imagine your Ted Williams $60K card on an exchange and everybody wants that card. There are 21M of them, but that are rising in value. Imagine the Banks are collecting them and people are investing thru the banks in ETFs where they can own a part of a card. Imagine that this year and next year that card will double 3-4 times on Coinbase or the ETFs, but not in your home safe unless you can find one buyer to hammer out a legal transfer without getting robbed.
Do you have any money to invest or is do you just hate it because the boat sailed. Heck, that boat is a floating bank.
I turned 75K into 160K in my pocket, 1/3 more for taxes, and over a quarter million one top of cashing out my investment. I am still stuck with 50K in mining equipment I paid myself back for, on top of that.
The worst thing about BTC is if you actively trade, not something I do now, you owe taxes on the profits. It is growing so fast you actively trading may result in you having to sell it to pay your taxes. If you let the “asset” sit and grow it is becomes a kind of Traditional IRA asset - thats how I look at it.
The advantage is that you could put it on a cold storage device and avoid the appearance of ownership and never pay taxes on an asset that grows fast than the Fed’s QE printing press.
You and I both have limited money to live on. The difference is that you invest in the S&P 500 or DOW 200 and I own BTC. Your money is worth less because of QE and government spending. The BTC is growing faster than Government induced inflation.
ETFs are the way to go at this moment in time. However I alrewady have BTC and since November I turned 2.2 into 4 and went from 69K to 260K. The ETFs will only accelerate those valuations.
My last job for the USG was directed in a Cryptographic Services Branch under protest. That said, BTC and the hash are a point where the intersection is no longer in play.
Even if you could somehow create more BTC, there can be no more than 21 or 28M. Even if you could it would have to sync to the public history of BTC.
The entire point of BTC was to create a medium of exchange that would not be subject to the Governmental wheelborrow effect. Today, it is one asset without peer.
It is digital Gold.
Great job!
My Bitcoin investment is up over 1400% and I am up 236% overall. That’s 13 different coins.
I buy and hold, and if a coin is doing really bad over 3 years, then I trade into some thing cheaper that’s trending up. Ideally a top 100 coin.
Like you I am looking at this thing long haul.
Ideally I may stake some of my coins and earn interest or even loan? Maybe borrow up to 10% of it?
Bottom line I am not selling, and in for the long haul.
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