Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

marting said:
It's a Fifth Amendment issue. State courts are divided.

This comes up the most unlocking cell phones.

https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/can-police-search-your-phone-if-it-is-locked/
https://www.reuters.com/business/le...l-over-forced-password-disclosure-2021-05-17/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...n-suspect-to-reveal-his-password-court-rules/
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It’s not the same as unlocking a cell phone. Everybody already knows what’s in the wallet - it’s on the block chain. You are not incriminating yourself by providing the FBI with the means to get the BTC out.
 
novaphile said:
Since it has already happened to Americans, I'll let other Americans explain to you why you're wrong.
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Or not?

The Silk road seizure was done with the assistance of an unknown hacker. In other cases, the authorities may seize computers and other electronic devices that might have the private key upon gaining a warrant. https://www.pagepate.com/bitcoin-seizures/

But I can't find any cases where somebody was jailed for refusing to disclose a private key nor reveal where they may have stored the private key.
 
The_Animus said:
One of these things is not like the other. Posting factual information that isn't negative about BTC isn't defending a con job.
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Sigh, of course not. But defending a con job is defending a con job.
The_Animus said:
Posting corrections to inaccurate information isn't defending a con job.
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You actually think psion posts corrections? Ok...
The_Animus said:
Never have I once seen them try to convince other people to buy bitcoin nor say that it will always earn more money.
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If telling people bitcoin has always made money isn't trying to convince people that bitcoin is a good buy and that it will continue to make money in your eyes, then I guess you haven't seen that. Around my neck of the woods, even with a disclaimer in the fine print that (past performance does not indicate future results), making claims that 'x financial strategy' has always made people money every time they followed that strategy in the past is an advertisement for 'x financial strategy'.
 
wareyin said:
Sigh, of course not. But defending a con job is defending a con job.

You actually think psion posts corrections? Ok...

If telling people bitcoin has always made money isn't trying to convince people that bitcoin is a good buy and that it will continue to make money in your eyes, then I guess you haven't seen that. Around my neck of the woods, even with a disclaimer in the fine print that (past performance does not indicate future results), making claims that 'x financial strategy' has always made people money every time they followed that strategy in the past is an advertisement for 'x financial strategy'.
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Bitcoin has never made money. What it does is transfer money from one person to another. If you bought BTC when it was practically worthless, and sold at $60,000 you have made $60k, but somebody else has lost $60k. Of course they have an opportunity to reclaim some or all of their losses by selling the BTC but only at the expense of somebody else.

It’s a form of gambling, but it’s marketed as “investment”. Psion will claim that there are other things that are sold as an investment but are really just gambling and that may be true, but claiming it makes BTC trading good is a fallacy.
 
jeremyp said:
Bitcoin has never made money. What it does is transfer money from one person to another. If you bought BTC when it was practically worthless, and sold at $60,000 you have made $60k, but somebody else has lost $60k. Of course they have an opportunity to reclaim some or all of their losses by selling the BTC but only at the expense of somebody else.

It’s a form of gambling, but it’s marketed as “investment”. Psion will claim that there are other things that are sold as an investment but are really just gambling and that may be true, but claiming it makes BTC trading good is a fallacy.
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Bitcoin is a brand.
So is coca cola.
There is no nutrition in either one might suggest.
 
Samson said:
Bitcoin is a brand.
So is coca cola.
There is no nutrition in either one might suggest.
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I think you're being harsh to the cola brand...

If you're dying of starvation, or thirst, the cola will give you some sustenance.

(It contains water and sugars).

In places where the local water supply is basically enteritis in a cup, the cola is safer to drink.

:D
 
The_Animus said:
All Psion said was that since BTC's inception people have been constantly saying (paraphrase) "BTC will never go above x" or after a drop in BTC's price that "BTC will never reach or exceed it's previous high point" and over and over again they were wrong. Based on this, Psion believes it has a chance of doing so again. Not that it will, just that it could. They've also said in past posts that BTC could go up or down and that as far as an investment it has rough odds so you better be able to spare the potential loss. (Psion if I've misrepresented you in any of this I apologize and hope you will correct me).
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That is a pretty fair summary of my position. Of course, it would take a massive effort to interpret me any differently - but some do because they want to present bitcoin in the worst possible light and part of that agenda is trying to demonstrate that only a bitcoin lover would give a balanced view of it.
 
jeremyp said:
If you bought BTC when it was practically worthless, and sold at $60,000 you have made $60k, but somebody else has lost $60k.
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Why is this only true of bitcoin? If a philatelist sells $60k worth of used stamps do you say that the buyer "lost" $60k (or that he gained some used stamps)?

It is only a bad investment if bitcoin is absolutely guaranteed to go down to 0 (this time for sure). Otherwise it is no different to any other instrument of speculation. There are no unique rules for bitcoin.
 
psionl0 said:
Why is this only true of bitcoin?
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It isn't.

In fact, if you had read the rest of my post, you would see...

If a philatelist sells $60k worth of used stamps do you say that the buyer "lost" $60k (or that he gained some used stamps)?
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... Bingo

It is only a bad investment if bitcoin is absolutely guaranteed to go down to 0 (this time for sure). Otherwise it is no different to any other instrument of speculation. There are no unique rules for bitcoin.
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It's not an investment. It's a gamble.

If buying and selling stamps is also a gamble, it doesn't make trading in BTC "good". Anyway, some people collect stamps to have the stamps, not because they might later be able to sell them again. Nobody does that with Bitcoin.
 
gabeygoat said:
Seriously? You obviously know the difference in a financial investment in a business and a craps game
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I don't know how that poster is using the word. For all I know they are calling a "good" instrument of speculation "investing" and a "bad" instrument of speculation "gambling".

They obviously want everybody to believe that bitcoin is a sure money loser but since that claim is falsifiable, they don't dare spell it out.
 
psionl0 said:
I don't know how that poster is using the word. For all I know they are calling a "good" instrument of speculation "investing" and a "bad" instrument of speculation "gambling".
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There's nothing bad about gambling as long as you are aware of what you re doing. The problem is that a lot of people don't seem to be aware that BTC is not the same as AAPL.
They obviously want everybody to believe that bitcoin is a sure money loser but since that claim is falsifiable, they don't dare spell it out.
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It's a zero sum game. All that happens with Bitcoin is that somebody hands somebody else some real money in exchange for a line in a ledger. The only hope of getting the money back is if somebody else is prepared to give the first person more money for the same line in the ledger. Add up all the money made on BTC and it will be the same - or actually slightly less - than the amount of money lost on BTC.
 
psionl0 said:
I don't know how that poster is using the word. For all I know they are calling a "good" instrument of speculation "investing" and a "bad" instrument of speculation "gambling".

They obviously want everybody to believe that bitcoin is a sure money loser but since that claim is falsifiable, they don't dare spell it out.
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In the same sense that everyone who held bitcoin long enough made money every single time, everyone who predicted the right numbers showing made money on the craps table every single time.

And for all the complaints that people are unfairly painting you as a bitcoin lover merely because you will not hear a bad word spoken against it, you're sure going out of your way to paint anyone who doesn't look at bitcoin as favorably as you do as both too hard on bitcoin and too cowardly to be as hard on bitcoin as you're sure in your heart of hearts that they are.
 
psionl0 said:
But I can't find any cases where somebody was jailed for refusing to disclose a private key nor reveal where they may have stored the private key.
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This would be because it never came up. People have spent years in jail for contempt for not turning over assets pursuant to a court order. Once a court rules the bitcoin belongs to someone else and that a person refuses to turn over keys they can be held in civil contempt and jailed until they do. There is nothing special about bitcoin keys as opposed to a hidden bank account that makes it any different.

Consider Mr. Chadwick's case. In 1994, during divorce proceedings, a Delaware County judge held Mr. Chadwick in civil contempt for failing to put $2.5 million in a court-controlled account. He says he lost the money in bad investments; his wife's attorney claimed he had hidden it offshore. In April 1995, Mr. Chadwick was arrested and detained. Nearly 14 years later, Mr. Chadwick, who suffers from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is still in jail -- even after a retired judge was hired to help locate the money, and failed.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123137263059962659

Cops investigating a crime is a whole different ball of wax, but since they can see the bitcoin the only reason they'd need the keys is to prevent transfer, and once the person holding the keys in on notice destroying the keys would be destruction of evidence....
 
gabeygoat said:
Seriously? You obviously know the difference in a financial investment in a business and a craps game
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Speculation is speculation.

I mean, when I did that sort of thing between poker and sports betting my bankroll was basically a small hedge fund. I'd argue with a straight face that it had more social utility than all the real estate market driven speculation going on back in the late 90s / early 00s.

Crypto speculation is a harder sell with the whole energy thing and because it is trying to act like a formal investment thus making it easier to use as a platform for fraud.
 
Suddenly said:
Speculation is speculation.
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Gambling isn't speculation. Speculation plays a role in connecting prices between buyers and sellers and helps smooth out short term variability in market prices.

Eg when someone wants to sell a large amount of a commodity immediately, but the consumers of that commodity don't need it right now it will generally end up being purchased by a speculator who will then re-sell it when it's needed. The seller gets their money now, the ultimate buyer doesn't need to tie up capital buying something they won't use right away and the speculator walks away with a small profit for bridging the two requirements.
 
lomiller said:
Gambling isn't speculation. Speculation plays a role in connecting prices between buyers and sellers and helps smooth out short term variability in market prices.

Eg when someone wants to sell a large amount of a commodity immediately, but the consumers of that commodity don't need it right now it will generally end up being purchased by a speculator who will then re-sell it when it's needed. The seller gets their money now, the ultimate buyer doesn't need to tie up capital buying something they won't use right away and the speculator walks away with a small profit for bridging the two requirements.
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It's the same thing in that it is putting money at risk hoping that you get more back.

Some speculation has more social utility than others and involves more tangible things. Gambling* is more like a type of derivative market in that there is no ownership of anything.

Like prediction markets. These can be efficient in determining the probability of an outcome. The point spread/money line is basically that. When the prediction is about a football game it generally has little real world application. If you own a bar and would profit a bunch in sales if your home team would advance in the playoffs you could hedge that by placing a money line bet against the team. Which isn't exactly a broad application. I once bet against a referendum to allow legal poker in my county for similar reasons...


*Some people define gambling to only include activities of pure chance. Poker and sports betting not being gambling while roulette is gambling, etc. Which on the other hand is close to what a lot of retail investors are effectively doing, really, so that gets in the weeds a bit.
 
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Molly White has a deep dive into GBTC. Basically, a consistent, high profit bitcoin bsed arbitrage that worked until it didn't.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust: the free money machine that went into reverse

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/grayscale-bitcoin-trust-the-free

t’s important to remember that it was a lot harder for the average person to buy Bitcoin (BTC) in 2013. Grayscale observed that there was a market there: investors—both institutional and individual—wanted exposure to Bitcoin, but didn’t want to or weren’t able to mine it themselves, buy it peer-to-peer, or use one of the various (and somewhat shaky) crypto exchanges. So, Grayscale launched GBTC.
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After a six month lockup period, they could sell their GBTC shares on the secondary market. Assuming that GBTC continued to trade at a premium and Bitcoin prices remained stable or increased for those six months, this was an incredibly lucrative trade: institutions could pocket the premium, or they could rinse and repeat with the same trade.
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As it turns out, this GBTC arbitrage played a huge role in the disaster of a year that the crypto industry just had.
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