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Post by illram on Mar 5, 2018 15:32:20 GMT -5
Fully replacing fiat is I think unrealistic. There are a few possibilities for them to coexist with fiat, or offer an alternative, none of which are necessarily mutually exclusive and each could happen (or not) before or after any other, and none of these possibilities rely on any particular coin or blockchain: 1. Phone apps converting crypto to USD/CAD/GBP/EUR (i.e. fiat currency) for payments. This is being worked on now and is already available on some coins, albeit with very limited availability of any merchants. This is crypto currency agnostic, i.e. they could theoretically use any coin and multiple coins. 2. Credit cards linked to MasterCard or Visa network that have a crypto balance, but can be used like normal credit cards. This is currently available, e.g. Uphold offers these, and there are tons of companies (including blockchain developers) working on their own products. This is also crypto currency agnostic. 3. Blockchain apps working in the background solely to deal with exchange of your cash to wherever it needs to go. The blockchain (or "distributed ledger") can securely deal with the information needed for the electronic distribution of money much, much quicker and more efficiently and cheaper than the current payment gateway providers. Huge billion dollar companies you have never heard of such as SWIFT network & Worldpay would basically be obsolete. These are the "middlemen" which basically form the backbone of all electronic financial transfers in the world, so there is a possible financial incentive to replace them with just a blockchain protocol (which could be a token or coin, or some privately created blockchain just the banks all decide to use). This would be basically completely obscured to me and you, life would go on as normal really, we would still use fiat but blockchains would become the new backbone of all financial transactions. For fans of bitcoin and its ideals this is potentially sort of a "worst case scenario" because it could mean teh evil bankz wun. 4. Magical fairy unicorn land i.e. the banks cease to exist and we all use bitcoin or monero some other coin, which also magically stops being crazily volatile and stable enough to become a currency. Personally I think it is going to be all 3 together, with fiat still being king for a long time until there is a stable crypto currency that can be relied upon as an actual currency, and even then I think we need some sort of major shift in economics and social policy to replace government issued and regulated currencies. (Robots taking over, so we have nothing to do but look at our belly buttons all day and we need to radically rethink the concept of currency based transactions??! That kind of sh it. This is why nerds like me love this stuff.) If you put bitcoin on a credit card you would be foolish to use it to buy stuff as one hour later your $100 of bitcoin could easily be $150 (or the merchant would be foolish to accept it, as it could be $50.) I still don't really understand how any of those benefit either the consumer or the vendor. What is going to make the average consumer prefer making their transactions using cryptocurrency? So to further expand on (1) and (2) in my original post, I think the only way it makes sense is three primary use cases. One, any situation in which you would otherwise incur fees or involve a wait for the normal banking system. Transferring currency currently involves middlemen, all of whom take money from you for their service. Crypto theoretically eliminates that and makes everyone their own bank. For example, merchants could accept crypto and completely eliminate the 2.5% skim (or whatever Visa and Mastercard charge) for using credit cards or debit cards. Just like Apple Pay or Samsung pay or whatever, I could just wave my phone or my watch in front of a sensor and be on my way, minus the skim all of these merchants pay for that service. Or just pick up an RFID tagged product and walk out the door. Or, using a crypto wallet to instantly spend money or get cash in a foreign country without any fees (some credit cards let you do this already, not all though); or getting cash in any other situation instantly (e.g. as opposed to a wire transfer or a venmo transfer+then waiting for the money to hit your bank). Two: you need anonymity, e.g. you are using it for illegal activity. This is currently a very active use case, and we can all agree to disagree on whether that is actually a good thing. (For example maybe it could be a positive thing if you are giving dissidents in a dictatorship funding or something, as opposed to buying hand grenades on the silk road. Or you are buying the dissidents hand grenades on the silk road!) The third as already brought up is any situation where a person lacks a bank and maybe needs something more secure than cash, or their country's currency is worthless and they need to use dollars (or, a valuable cryptocurrency). Even in the worst "s hithole countries" people may have more ready access to phones and with at least cell service than they do reliable or cheap banking options. See e.g. Stellar, which is basically giving away its tokens in third world countries to try and spur them becoming a unit of exchange. Again though this only works if/when the currency lacks volatility, such that people actually want to use it as a means of transfer. None of this is guaranteed and none of this implies banks will not just come up with their own private blockchains to make using actual fiat dollars just as quick as convenient. I don't think fiat will ever go away, our society is way too tied to it. I think the only way these things work is as convenient or cheaper alternatives with specific use cases. E.g. in my third scenario none of us would even realize that the blockchain had revolutionized money, it would just become more fast and convenient to use our money as the banks just took it over. For example magically there would be no more days waiting for that ACH transfer to go through, or your direct deposit from ADP would no longer need a blank voided check and paperwork before hand, etc. etc. Little things like that.
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Post by blackbarney on Mar 6, 2018 11:34:57 GMT -5
but the value of cryptos are completely unstable and volatile which makes them extremely inappropriate to actually buy anything (especially consumer staples). You shouldn't be paying a materially different price for stuff from week to week.
for the time being, it's just a speculative investment
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Post by illram on Mar 6, 2018 14:02:41 GMT -5
but the value of cryptos are completely unstable and volatile which makes them extremely inappropriate to actually buy anything (especially consumer staples). You shouldn't be paying a materially different price for stuff from week to week. for the time being, it's just a speculative investment It is worse than that! It is entirely manipulated by "whales," i.e. people and groups who control the vast majority of Bitcoin and ether (and can thus run the market of all other coins). Obviously that needs to change. It's a big if. But the tech is sound and offers legitimate benefits in a huge variety of sectors. I think it will require more regulations drawing more institutional investors and "normal people money" into it, which will make it less lucrative but also much more stable. This is a long term thing. For the next few years though this will remain a total sh it show appropriate only for crazy people like me.
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Post by TheHawkNY on Mar 8, 2018 12:12:47 GMT -5
I still don't really understand how any of those benefit either the consumer or the vendor. What is going to make the average consumer prefer making their transactions using cryptocurrency? So to further expand on (1) and (2) in my original post, I think the only way it makes sense is three primary use cases. One, any situation in which you would otherwise incur fees or involve a wait for the normal banking system. Transferring currency currently involves middlemen, all of whom take money from you for their service. Crypto theoretically eliminates that and makes everyone their own bank. For example, merchants could accept crypto and completely eliminate the 2.5% skim (or whatever Visa and Mastercard charge) for using credit cards or debit cards. Just like Apple Pay or Samsung pay or whatever, I could just wave my phone or my watch in front of a sensor and be on my way, minus the skim all of these merchants pay for that service. Or just pick up an RFID tagged product and walk out the door. Or, using a crypto wallet to instantly spend money or get cash in a foreign country without any fees (some credit cards let you do this already, not all though); or getting cash in any other situation instantly (e.g. as opposed to a wire transfer or a venmo transfer+then waiting for the money to hit your bank). Two: you need anonymity, e.g. you are using it for illegal activity. This is currently a very active use case, and we can all agree to disagree on whether that is actually a good thing. (For example maybe it could be a positive thing if you are giving dissidents in a dictatorship funding or something, as opposed to buying hand grenades on the silk road. Or you are buying the dissidents hand grenades on the silk road!) The third as already brought up is any situation where a person lacks a bank and maybe needs something more secure than cash, or their country's currency is worthless and they need to use dollars (or, a valuable cryptocurrency). Even in the worst "s hithole countries" people may have more ready access to phones and with at least cell service than they do reliable or cheap banking options. See e.g. Stellar, which is basically giving away its tokens in third world countries to try and spur them becoming a unit of exchange. Again though this only works if/when the currency lacks volatility, such that people actually want to use it as a means of transfer. None of this is guaranteed and none of this implies banks will not just come up with their own private blockchains to make using actual fiat dollars just as quick as convenient. I don't think fiat will ever go away, our society is way too tied to it. I think the only way these things work is as convenient or cheaper alternatives with specific use cases. E.g. in my third scenario none of us would even realize that the blockchain had revolutionized money, it would just become more fast and convenient to use our money as the banks just took it over. For example magically there would be no more days waiting for that ACH transfer to go through, or your direct deposit from ADP would no longer need a blank voided check and paperwork before hand, etc. etc. Little things like that. Does transferring cryptocurrency not include middlemen? I mean, in order for vendors to use it, it would need to be implemented in a Point-of-Sale system. Vendors also aren't going to switch unless their cryptocurrency is immediately switched to fiat - no one is going to tolerate the volatility of converting only periodically, and no one is paying their employees in Bitcoin. Is it realistic for a company to come in and successfully provide a solution that would satisfy all of this at a rate that undercuts the credit card companies enough to allow for widespread adaptation?
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Post by illram on Mar 9, 2018 2:46:27 GMT -5
So to further expand on (1) and (2) in my original post, I think the only way it makes sense is three primary use cases. One, any situation in which you would otherwise incur fees or involve a wait for the normal banking system. Transferring currency currently involves middlemen, all of whom take money from you for their service. Crypto theoretically eliminates that and makes everyone their own bank. For example, merchants could accept crypto and completely eliminate the 2.5% skim (or whatever Visa and Mastercard charge) for using credit cards or debit cards. Just like Apple Pay or Samsung pay or whatever, I could just wave my phone or my watch in front of a sensor and be on my way, minus the skim all of these merchants pay for that service. Or just pick up an RFID tagged product and walk out the door. Or, using a crypto wallet to instantly spend money or get cash in a foreign country without any fees (some credit cards let you do this already, not all though); or getting cash in any other situation instantly (e.g. as opposed to a wire transfer or a venmo transfer+then waiting for the money to hit your bank). Two: you need anonymity, e.g. you are using it for illegal activity. This is currently a very active use case, and we can all agree to disagree on whether that is actually a good thing. (For example maybe it could be a positive thing if you are giving dissidents in a dictatorship funding or something, as opposed to buying hand grenades on the silk road. Or you are buying the dissidents hand grenades on the silk road!) The third as already brought up is any situation where a person lacks a bank and maybe needs something more secure than cash, or their country's currency is worthless and they need to use dollars (or, a valuable cryptocurrency). Even in the worst "s hithole countries" people may have more ready access to phones and with at least cell service than they do reliable or cheap banking options. See e.g. Stellar, which is basically giving away its tokens in third world countries to try and spur them becoming a unit of exchange. Again though this only works if/when the currency lacks volatility, such that people actually want to use it as a means of transfer. None of this is guaranteed and none of this implies banks will not just come up with their own private blockchains to make using actual fiat dollars just as quick as convenient. I don't think fiat will ever go away, our society is way too tied to it. I think the only way these things work is as convenient or cheaper alternatives with specific use cases. E.g. in my third scenario none of us would even realize that the blockchain had revolutionized money, it would just become more fast and convenient to use our money as the banks just took it over. For example magically there would be no more days waiting for that ACH transfer to go through, or your direct deposit from ADP would no longer need a blank voided check and paperwork before hand, etc. etc. Little things like that. Does transferring cryptocurrency not include middlemen? I mean, in order for vendors to use it, it would need to be implemented in a Point-of-Sale system. Vendors also aren't going to switch unless their cryptocurrency is immediately switched to fiat - no one is going to tolerate the volatility of converting only periodically, and no one is paying their employees in Bitcoin. Is it realistic for a company to come in and successfully provide a solution that would satisfy all of this at a rate that undercuts the credit card companies enough to allow for widespread adaptation? If the merchant does not want or need to instantly convert to fiat, yes crypto would involve no middlemen. It comes right out of your wallet and into theirs. The true crypto utopia involves no banks or intermediaries between you and the person/entity you are paying. I recognize that's a pipedream. (Probably for good reason. I'm personally not one of the libertarian-crypto people, myself.) But yes currently using crypto at a store, if you want to instantly convert to fiat, involves middlemen. Such as Bitpay. However, they still charge less than credit cards (1%). Visa and Mastercard charge around 2% and AMEX charges around 3%. But there are more charges than that and if you've ever run a business that takes cards it is actually sort of a pain to do it. You also need to sign up for a merchant account who also charges you, for example. See this page for the rabbit hole on that. Crypto, while risky, has the potential to be a hell of a lot simpler than that. I'm not saying it's easy to do right now though, it's not. Just that potentially, it could, since at most it would only ever need one middle man--the service to convert from crypto to fiat, which also could theoretically be another crypto! See e.g. OMG, REQ, Stellar, Ripple. That said, you still absolutely have a very valid point. I don't want to make it seem like I don't think you do, I think you are totally right to be very skeptical. All of this is unlikely given the current systems ability to very quickly pivot if it needs to to save itself. Visa et al. could probably just wipe out bitpay and others if they saw them as a legit threat. Paypal for example is working on its own blockchain. IBM is working on the "hyperledger," it's private blockchain, to sell to the financial industry. They see the threat, they're not just going to let these upstarts upend the system we have carefully crafted since...I don't know when. (When's a good peg on our current financial system? When we dropped the gold standard in the 70's?) I think, basically, your overall criticism is sound. It will be incredibly difficult for crypto to actually replace fiat. I personally don't think it ever will. qupie's observation on going long on Ethereum is probably more likely. I can think of ways it could, maybe, do it, in the ways already described. These are possible ways that if it worked, it could objectively be better (at least from a fee and time perspective). But it's a huge longshot that needs a ton of (unlikely) dominoes to fall.
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asasa
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Post by asasa on Mar 10, 2018 15:25:39 GMT -5
i will literally never buy bitcoin. its a ponzi scheme where insider trading is legal. I missed a window to invest in Bitcoin back in 2013. I kick myself in the balls every time I think about it. kek Order Filled at: [] Feb 2013 [] PM GMT Amount: 5.65762381 BTC Price: @$23.79000 Total: $134.59487
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markopolo
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Once a LMG Camper, Then a Voidlock, Now a Lexington 25-8-366 Runner
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Post by markopolo on Mar 13, 2018 10:03:03 GMT -5
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Post by illram on Mar 13, 2018 11:51:44 GMT -5
Yes. Not surprising either and in line with the current stance of most governments and financial organizations. "This is dangerous, but it has a lot of possibilities and we should try and work with it and control it." I think it is inevitable governments at least try to regulate this stuff. And to some extent they should given how absurdly manipulated and fake the current market is. Hopefully there can be a balance between trying to ferret out fraud and illicit activity while still letting the market exist without overly draconian restrictions. My fear is they just get lazy about it and decide to tax us all to death and simply make possession of certain privacy coins like Monero illegal (sort of how the IRS is approaching it now).
I think a good starting approach would be (1) more strict oversight of centralized exchanges, and (2) taxing only the event of cryptocurrency--->fiat, like capital gains. Right now the IRS is making people report and pay taxes on crypto to crypto exchanges, i.e. unrealized gains, which is dumb and only discourages people from reporting anything. There are already laws on the books to shut down "darknet" marketplaces and it is already fairly easy for a motivated government agency to track your fiat onramps and offramps.
It's interesting to consider what the IMF could do if it utilized distributed ledger technology itself. I haven't really thought about that too much.
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Slick
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Post by Slick on Mar 13, 2018 16:12:46 GMT -5
Stories like the one above are why I'm very bearish on privacy coins. Bitcoin would do a little better since the transactions of each block can be searched up and there is traceability. The money laundering excuse is just that, an excuse. Fiat has better privacy than bitcoin and the numbers back that up. Over 90% of laundered money is in fiat still. Only a tiny minority of laundering is being done in Bitcoin and there's stories of people being busted every other day. What I'm more concerned about is the Tether bomb. I would appreciate them giving the market a nice big pump so I can free capital and buy the bottom, then have the Wall Street etfs drive the market to a 10 trillion dollar industry.
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Slick
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Post by Slick on Mar 18, 2018 14:16:07 GMT -5
Was wrong before but let's see how this next forecast goes with a note: I'm probably shitposting so do your own analysis before investing or removing positions. I just wanna see if anyone is interested in the technical analysis in this thread.
For BTC and that's the only coin where TA matters, watch the market this upcoming weekend. The bear channel and trendline support extending back to July last year are about to cross near this timeframe. This is a key event and will help determine how long this bear market lasts. I personally think this support does not hold because I don't think 6800 is the bottom and the market will test the support trend below it that extends back to March last year and retest 5000. That is in my opinion, very close to the end of the correction; I do not foresee retesting 3500. Afterward, it's likely to trade sideways for a while afterward. Ready your fiat.
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asasa
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Post by asasa on Mar 30, 2018 13:02:17 GMT -5
Was wrong before but let's see how this next forecast goes with a note: I'm probably shitposting so do your own analysis before investing or removing positions. I just wanna see if anyone is interested in the technical analysis in this thread. For BTC and that's the only coin where TA matters, watch the market this upcoming weekend. The bear channel and trendline support extending back to July last year are about to cross near this timeframe. This is a key event and will help determine how long this bear market lasts. I personally think this support does not hold because I don't think 6800 is the bottom and the market will test the support trend below it that extends back to March last year and retest 5000. That is in my opinion, very close to the end of the correction; I do not foresee retesting 3500. Afterward, it's likely to trade sideways for a while afterward. Ready your fiat. RIP hodlers
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Slick
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Post by Slick on Mar 30, 2018 17:10:54 GMT -5
Hodling is indeed dead. Real profits are always better than paper profits. The only people hodling are the day zero miners.
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Post by illram on Apr 1, 2018 10:53:55 GMT -5
This is my not panicking face. I'm hodling on a 4-5 year timeline so I'm not as worried about buying in at $8k vs. $6k and just checking in now and then. Although it would be nice to have that little extra. I'm too lazy to tether and don't want to stress out over that whole element of this game. Not to mention complicating my tax situation given I'd be exchanging well before the 1 year cut off for higher capital gains on trades. The market has been pretty predictable since this downtrend started with all of these little fake +$300-500 pumps, if someone either had a lot of BTC to keep swinging to tether and back, or if you were really on top of the market 24/7, you could have increased your stack a little on the way down. I just do not have the mental stamina or fortitude to do that. If this keeps going down for a year like 2014 and we hit sub-$5k numbers then I'll be a bit chagrined at lost opportunities.
I spread myself out substantially among a lot of different coins (about 10) so unless the whole market tanks, or I made the wrong bets, I just need 1 or 2 of these to eventually pay off to get at least my initial investment back + (I hope) some profit.
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Slick
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Post by Slick on Apr 18, 2018 15:47:39 GMT -5
> Buy a short position sold by exchange > Exchange (allegedly) pumps market and liquidates shorts > surprised this doesn't get more talk in the community
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Post by illram on Apr 19, 2018 0:45:37 GMT -5
It's big on some of the various telegram groups. Seems to be the scam du jour. If I was day trading I'd just be looking at longs and shorts and acting accordingly.
This is why this space needs more regulation. Not stupid regulation but even just basic "OK you can't just outright scam your customers" regulation.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Apr 19, 2018 8:32:53 GMT -5
Yeah I really don't understand why people bother margin trading on these exchanges. Most of them are at least a little bit shady. Heck, crypto is all about trustlessness, and then people start trusting these guys? I prefer to trust my bank over exchanges.
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asasa
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fuck
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Post by asasa on Apr 25, 2018 13:29:15 GMT -5
This manipulation is scary.
Also margin traders getting rekt on both sides
[14:13:13 UTC] Liquidating long on BitMEX XBTUSD - Sell 6,155,873 @ 8,975.5
Meanwhile 12 hours earlier
[23:51:50 UTC] Liquidating short on BitMEX XBTUSD - Buy 3,511,936 @ 9,713
[00:35:40 UTC] Liquidating short on BitMEX XBTUSD - Buy 10,000,000 @ 9,174.5
Do not margin trade crypto
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probaddie
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You're triggering my intelligence
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Post by probaddie on Apr 25, 2018 22:36:19 GMT -5
I like peanuts.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Apr 26, 2018 6:52:10 GMT -5
On a similar note, I just used Kyber network exchange directly from my ledger. Works like a charm! The price was a little lower than binance exchange, but if you calculate the fees there and the withdrawal fee, the difference is non significant. Sold my KNC to buy in lower later after this Korean pump n dump. Fingers crossed.
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Slick
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Post by Slick on Apr 26, 2018 23:48:52 GMT -5
Time for BitMex and Bitfinex to die. Cannot allow this behavior to be supported. I also noticed Tether is now 2nd in trade volume. Yep, the bad actors are getting bolder. Get your money off those two exchanges. You have time to play before the feds come, but why would you?
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asasa
True Bro
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Post by asasa on Apr 27, 2018 21:52:26 GMT -5
Theyre trying very hard to prop the price up but its not working lol
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Post by illram on Apr 30, 2018 12:08:23 GMT -5
On a similar note, I just used Kyber network exchange directly from my ledger. Works like a charm! The price was a little lower than binance exchange, but if you calculate the fees there and the withdrawal fee, the difference is non significant. Sold my KNC to buy in lower later after this Korean pump n dump. Fingers crossed. Yeah I used IDEX directly with my Ledger recently. Haven't used Kyber or Bancor but IDEX is having constant issues with the huge volume, but when it works it's nice. Also possibly just an inherent issue with the Ethereum network until it can build out to handle more traffic. The decentralized exchange concept is definitely the future. Or at least it should be.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on May 3, 2018 7:07:16 GMT -5
Haven't tried IDEX yet honestly, do you need metamask for it?
Should really get on there, most moonshots can be found there. For some reason I just don't feel like it lol.
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Post by illram on May 3, 2018 11:43:01 GMT -5
Haven't tried IDEX yet honestly, do you need metamask for it? Should really get on there, most moonshots can be found there. For some reason I just don't feel like it lol. I think it works with metamask. With the Ledger you do not need metamask. Yeah there are a lot of moonshots on IDEX. It is buggy as all hell though because they are clearly not set up for high volume. It goes down constantly which is frustrating. Volume on some coins is also lower than optimal for trading, you basically have to take the lowest ask or risk having your bid sit there forever.
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asasa
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Post by asasa on May 3, 2018 14:56:33 GMT -5
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qupie
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Post by qupie on May 4, 2018 6:35:23 GMT -5
Haven't tried IDEX yet honestly, do you need metamask for it? Should really get on there, most moonshots can be found there. For some reason I just don't feel like it lol. I think it works with metamask. With the Ledger you do not need metamask. Yeah there are a lot of moonshots on IDEX. It is buggy as all hell though because they are clearly not set up for high volume. It goes down constantly which is frustrating. Volume on some coins is also lower than optimal for trading, you basically have to take the lowest ask or risk having your bid sit there forever. And having your bid sit there means having your pc on and ledger connected all that time, right? Or only placing the bets?
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Post by illram on May 4, 2018 12:28:07 GMT -5
Yeah the Ledger needs to sign every transaction (i.e. you click a button on the Ledger confirming every transaction/withdrawal/deposit). I think you just need it to sign when you place the bid/ask though not when it goes through.
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asasa
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Post by asasa on May 6, 2018 0:07:59 GMT -5
10k pls
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qupie
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Post by qupie on May 7, 2018 3:55:40 GMT -5
Yeah BTC inability to get to 10K is dragging down everything. This is probably not to bad though, some breathers. If you guys like to watch tv shows, silicon valley is a kind of weird show, kinda funny, but the last season and the current are pointing towards crypto. Last night episode was great fun with regards to moon kids.
Lets see if this SEC FUD is coming true, it will slow down eth price movement, but the devs will keep on going. HODL.
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asasa
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fuck
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Post by asasa on May 7, 2018 12:19:00 GMT -5
Community consensus seems to be that ETH is not a security. I still think Bitfinex is propping the price up. Volume is terrible and bid support is, too. As soon as $9200 fell, magical 3k bidwall appears and spike to $9400
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