Topic: The Wall Street Myth (Read 2486 times)

Goldbugs hate bitcoin.  When its convenient bitbugs throw around metallism or Peter Schiff.  Thats about the only similarity between these 2 groups

I doubt it. For most people, gold is a secure holding because it's not dependent on anything.
Switching over to bitcoin, which depends on computers, math, and the internet (thus, big complex systems
that the average gold-holder does not understand or has any control over) is highly unlikely IMHO.

I have to agree. I think more and more goldbugs will convert to bitcoin.

Exactly, next price boom will be Argentina.

i think the infusion that will get it going and probably has already begun is that from the gold and silver community.  with an estimated $7T in gold reserves worldwide, just a small infusion will jack the BTC price to a level that will make the world sit up and notice.

I agree with your main point, absolutely.  Still, I think one of the big advantages to BTC are the low transaction costs.  The charges are 4% froth in the system.  Whether store owners would pass it on or keep it, I don't know.  I suspect, though, that somewhere there are advantages to the efficiency.  IF we could overcome some other obstacles.

I agree w the article.  I used to work in wall street and i know a lot of guys who manage hedge funds.

Most of the guys I know are pretty smart.  Like ivy league w degrees in financial engineering.

Most bitcoiners get the economics wrong.  VCs only invested in companies like Coinbase.  Doesnt matter the price cause coinbase make money as a dealer

Hedge funds make money from hedging.  Wall street doesnt operate how this forum thinks

Once upon a time, the listed price at the "local" computer store is cash price.  If one were to pay with credit card, you will have a 3% surcharge.  Then e-commerce becomes popularize, and unfortunately, the best way to pay online is credit card.  The cash price discount / credit card surcharge disappears.  Given that, you would be very dumb to use cash to buy stuff - you are paying the same price but get certain protection with credit card, pay maybe 1.5 months later depending on the billing cycle, loyalty points, etc.

People make a point that BTC save retailers money, maybe, but will they pass it on to the consumers or they'll just pocket it themselves?

In this world, it's always the rich ripping off the poor, and the super-rich ripping off the rich ........

But I applaud you for your creative thinking.

it's ok, it'll be the tech geek's / common man's equalizer to wall st and chance of rising from the poor.  Hopefully by the time they get in, they are no longer the dominant force that it currently is in the financial market.

Great points!

the one counter argument is that BTC's hype cycles seem so transparent and the payoff really good.  If a quant back-tested an algorithm that looks at twitter FB reddit traffic and could predict the ramp there would be the "edge" described in the article.  A player could expect a 10 bagger with bitfinex leverage getting you to 50x in one year.  This kind of payoff could justify a small investment.  This could be what happened in the recent BFX leverage to 32M.  Likely this kind of player would look for momentum, so we will not see him entering until there is a clear uptrend...

But this kind of person would try to dump at the top, so actually not really the sort of adoption we want anyway.  Best to not worry about Wall St and just look at and encourage international adoption.

I think wall street will drive the next rise. Although i really liked his blogpost - a lot of good points. But i see it from a different angle. In my opinion bitcoin is really cheap right now. Vendor and mining infrastructure is rising every day, but the price does not reflect all this progress.

In my opinion wall street will start the next rise. The current price is lagging compared to the ecosystem and the user numbers. The rise is overdue, it just needs a spark to start.

<- bull

I don't think Oda was disagreeing with that. Just more about whether they will be the drivers of the next price surge, and if so, when?
And as an extension, if not, then who?

As Cypherdoc says, the number getting involved will increase over time as there is profit to be made from retail customers, but a priori there needs to be that demand, and the liquidity for them to extract sufficient profit.
Retail wants it, retail will get it! Or, as liquidity increases such that it becomes more of a tradeable asset in in the order of magnitude that raises banks eyebrows and their bottom lines, they will get more involved.

It's a hard sell to a risk manager to take a decent enough outright position in something that cannot be easily liquidated and has regulatory uncertainty surrounding it. Its a ballsy call, when you can instead leverage up a relatively risk free pairs trade and not risk your job.
Until then IMO, most will sit back, watch and wait. And for sure they are watching. And they are more patient than most of us here. Different time frames, which also supports the idea that as 'big money' bets involved, the cycles may lengthen, in both time and amplitude.

Meanwhile I think HNWI's may be the next driver to take it to that level. They can afford to get involved and don't have shareholders to answer to. I think this is already happening to some degree. And many of them may be the very same traders from the banks, using their own money.

When the VC funded start ups reach IPO stage and banks can take a stake in them, they will have more of an incentive to prime the price of both.

Retail usually buys the tops after a cycle of self-interested hype 

If wall street comes, the sell side of the order book will dry up. Why? Because early adopters won't want them to take away our toys. And access to the block chain is guaranteed while we have an Internet.

That would, in turn, be the reason price goes bonkers.

In short, I think you're being pessimistic. Bitcoin can't be taken away. Either in terms of coins or infrastructure.

all Liu is saying is that Wall St will resist any financial system that doesn't allow it to take a risk free chunk out in fees or market inefficiencies from the retail investor.  so what has changed?  there are Wall St individuals "swinging the bat" as stated above in the Bitcoin space.  that should only increase with time.  we're already seeing isolated banks round the world dipping their feet into the waters.  i think this trend continues until Wall St can't ignore it.

there does not need to be any rush.  eventually, it will happen.

Isn't your world always collapsing?

 

I think this is absolutely correct:


I've posted this a few different times in different threads, but I think it's interesting to speculate about the use case of buying gasoline at the pump.  There is massive potential upside to this case, as it is a very low margin item for c-store operators, and they are paying in the neighborhood of 4% on transaction fees.  Gas is something many people buy a lot of and buy frequently.  If the credit card processors could be cut out, there is almost 4% to spread between the c-store operators and the consumers. 

The downsides include: speed of confirmation with BTC, rules regarding taxation (would technically have to book the capital gain/loss at every transaction, I think), lack of infrastructure at the pump in terms of BTC-native solutions.  I mean, I could buy with CoinFueled or Qora right now, but that doesn't actually save the c-store operator the processing fee. 

Partial solution would include equipping pump with a BTC wallet or some other native BTC-enabled system.  Maybe one of Draper's VC army could get to work on building/selling a BTC-enabled gas pump to sell to c-store owners.  But is there enough consumer demand that 2% of all BTC-for-gas purchases would pay for that hardware? 

Bottom line, if I could buy gas with BTC, I would likely do it.  I would also immediately replenish my BTC supply, just about every time, with a little bit of possible price arbitrage.  If I thought I could buy cheaper before my next fill up, I might wait a few days.  Especially if I could get a discount on the gas, it would be worth it. 

But we're REALLY far away from this use case right now.  The only use case that works, so far, is buying something online (computers, travel) that may not ship for 24 hours. 

Note: there is nothing special about this use case, other than the fact that it represents something people commonly do, not online, and not mirroring the use cases that exist.  I just find it to be a good mental exercise that helps me understand how far away we are from BTC becoming used consistently and frequently as a currency.

Not long ago, I was that Wall Street was still on their months long summer beach vacations with no Internet access and would not be back until September. And now I'm being told that there is no Wall Street money?? My world is collapsing.

EXCEPT.. the fact ballers "wall street" might already be a 5,10,20,30% holder of BTC and would make a massive beating jacking the price up and selling it at 10,20,30x...

Soooo ya.... There are large chances this is what has happend.  They could keep the price suppressed for years.. even tanking it so low they could become massive holders and only the die hard BTCers and "wall street" would be left with any BTC then.. BAMZO create a small finacial criss.. jump the price of BTC 100%.. watch the public pump it to 20,30x and sell.

oda.krell getting weaned from another bitcoin myth, besides the ones in rpietila's quality delusional TA thread.

For Wall street fiat to pump the next mania phase of a bitcoin bubble, they'd have to be sure there are enough potential bagholders
to buy close to the top of the bubble. Which means lots of good press on bitcoin, to entice new suckers to buy at ~5,000$. Possible, but IMO not soon.