Kevin O'Leary on FTX

deaddog said:
Well it's hard to price the Brooklyn Bridge in Crypto because it fluctuates so violently.

It seems we have to have fiat to value crypto.
More...

You have to have fiat to value anything. Look at it this way. What is the Brooklyn Bridge worth in 18" NY pizzas, based on the value of pizza not backed by fiat? How many pizzas would it cost to buy the bridge? Well, it is whatever number of pizzas the seller of the bridge is willing to accept for it. So what is the value of the pizzas worth to the seller? It has to be priced in fiat.

A never-ending circle-jerk of talk about "value".
 
Baron said:
Bitcoin IS decentralized.



Bitcoin is readily available to anyone worldwide. I can send BTC to anyone on the planet with a wallet app installed on their smartphone or computer. That's a friggin' lot of people.




I'm not sure if we're at billions yet, but we are definitely headed in that direction.

See, your core problem is that you're using crypto as a catch-all word for everything, but the ecosystem is too broad to do that. An example would be using the word "money" every time you wanted to reference a physical dollar bill, a digital Yen, physical coins, or electronic fund transfers. So if you said, "Money is so inconvenient because it's such a pain in the ass to transfer." you'd be right if you were actually referring to 30 truckloads of pennies, but wrong if you were referring to an electronic funds transfer of the same amount.

So by using crypto as a generic term, you're actually making a lot of false statements because the fact of the matter is that some cryptos have solved a certain set of problems, and others have taken on a whole different set of issues with varying levels of success. That's why you can't just go around saying things like crypto isn't decentralized or isn't readily available because it's just not true.
More...

And you are in agreement with being a funds transfer/payment system.
Exactly what I said in the first line of my first post (post #3) in this thread.

Decentralized with governmental access with tracking, and governmental regulations.
It's so decentralized, US citizens are not even allowed access to all of the infrastructure.
Okey dokey. Point noted.

Carry on evangelists...I know when to walk.
I wish you all the best in your future crypto endeavors.

I'll revisit as events unfold in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
In the meantime, maybe I'll create a "TwinkCoin" pegged to eNaira to solve a certain set of problems with starvation in Nigeria. The Nigerian naira was pegged to USD until 2016. The eNaira, the digital version of the naira was introduced last year.

Carry on.
 
tiddlywinks said:
And you are in agreement with being a funds transfer/payment system.
More...
Yes, I am in agreement that crypto stablecoins are an absolutely superior way for businesses and individuals to transfer USD faster and cheaper to anyone on the planet 24/7, and that's exactly what Kevin O'Leary was trying to communicate. You had asked in a prior post what makes stablecoins so different from having a traditional account at a financial institution, so to be specific, here are some of the reasons:
  1. It's much cheaper to transfer stablecoins than it is to transfer the same value in USD via the bank system.
  2. There aren't any intermediaries like there are with an international wire transfer so the counterparty risk is eliminated. It's a transfer from the one sending the funds directly to the one receiving the funds.
  3. It's faster to transfer stablecoins. There's no time spent dealing with bank officers, wire transfer forms, etc.
  4. It's more convenient to transfer stablecoins because there's no such thing as "business hours and days" so transfers can happen 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. If I want to buy a condo in Dubai as an investment property, I can send the funds on a Saturday night at 7PM and the seller will have those funds cleared in his account within minutes.
 
Last edited:
Baron said:
Yes, I am in agreement that crypto stablecoins are an absolutely superior way for businesses and individuals to transfer USD faster and cheaper to anyone on the planet 24/7, and that's exactly what Kevin O'Leary was trying to communicate. You had asked in a prior post what makes stablecoins so different from having a traditional account at a financial institution, so to be specific, here are some of the reasons:
  1. It's much cheaper to transfer stablecoins than it is to transfer the same value in USD via the bank system.
  2. There aren't any intermediaries like there are with an international wire transfer so the counterparty risk is eliminated. It's a transfer from the one sending the funds directly to the one receiving the funds.
  3. It's faster to transfer stablecoins. There's no time spent dealing with bank officers, wire transfer forms, etc.
  4. It's more convenient to transfer stablecoins because there's no such thing as "business hours and days" so transfers can happen 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. If I want to buy a condo in Dubai as an investment property, I can send the funds on a Saturday night at 7PM and the seller will have those funds cleared in his account within minutes.
More...

I think the question is..."What is stable"?? Bitcoin was at $65,000+, it's now at below $17,000. If it drops to $1,000. would you still call it stable? If a virus got to it, would it be stable??

No, I'm not "the dollar is the best thing since sliced bread"...I know the printing will come back and bite us big time. I get it. I really don't have an answer, except to be diversified into many different asset classes as possible.

A couple weeks ago, I brought in a cashiers check into a local Schwab office...Was going to buy some treasuries. I thought it would take a few days to clear. The person behind the desk (don't know is she was even licensed) said I could trade the same day!! I could not withdraw, but could trade!! The US system of transfers works...Yeah, it's slow...But it works. I was a realtor...Any idea how many escrows were delayed by funding hangups!!

I heard FTX (or Sam) bought 5 condos in The Bahamas. Enjoy cleaning up that mess!!

2008, my wife and I went to Guaranty Bank in California. We withdrew all our money. We drove the safe deposit contents to Wells Fargo Bank. We opened up checking, savings, and safe deposit there. I am being as honest and I can. We were charged $35. a year for the safe deposit box. Little did they know, I would have paid over $100. for that box!! We were getting hardly anything (rates) for the savings and checking. Little did they know, even if was minus 1% I would have kept my money there.

A few months later Guaranty Bank went under...Was bought out by BBVA USA...FDIC helped with the bailout. Did I want to wait and see what and how FDIC worked?? NO!!!

Just saying there is secure and then there is secure...
 
I really don't have an answer, except to be diversified into many different asset classes as possible.
More...

That is pretty much the answer. Even those who are fully bullish on blue-chip cryptos have to realize that swan events will always continue...

Tomorrow Vitalik may get hit and killed by a Tesla on auto-pilot.
ETH crashes down -17% within 2 hours, then an avalanche of margin-calls starts rolling and there is a drawdown to -70% in two days.​

Or out of the blue, we see that Satoshi's wallet suddenly starts moving coins around by some mysterious person.
Bitcoin crashes down -35% over the next two days. Then, the full amount of those Bitcoins all are sold off at once flooding the whole market, dropping Bitcoin down to -95% with the additional gravity of more margin-calls.
​
We can sit here all night, and go over all of these REAL possibilities, and lose sleep over it. But alas... just diversify into a few assets and let what happens, happen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top