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db2 ,

Bitcoin doesn't move like the stock market. There's no hedge funds to call to naked short a nonexistent Bitcoin Inc in to the dirt. This means nothing.

That said I'd live bitcoin to go to a penny. I'd buy and hodl. I'd buy and hodl hard.

That said, fuck Trump. But not literally because his lineage should be pruned.

shortwavesurfer ,

Monero is what Bitcoiners thought they bought. It's completely fungible and private just as cash is supposed to be.

Fisch ,
@Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Monero is great. Only crypto currency I actually use. Transactions are also waaay cheaper and faster than with Bitcoin.

shortwavesurfer ,

It's really the only one worth using.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

It's also the one being targeted by governments, who are trying harder and harder to track consumer spending.

Even if you don't like crypto generally, consider using Monero as a middle finger to governments. Don't hold any long term, just make a few purchases here and there.

shortwavesurfer ,

I think it's worth using long-term. If they are targeting it so hard, that must mean that it actually works. Because otherwise, why would they be going after it so damn hard?

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Exactly. I don't think they can track transactions, so the next best thing is to make it illegal. If more people use it for regular transactions, it's even harder for them to ban.

shortwavesurfer ,

Problem is, is that they can't even really truly make it illegal. As long as any cryptocurrency is legal, no matter what it is, you can always buy Monero, either with it or by exchanging it for Bitcoin or Litecoin and then exchanging that for Monero. Also, the decentralized exchange, Haveno launched a month ago today and there is no way to shut it down. It's a peer to peer decentralized exchange all done over the tor network. Good luck without killing the internet entirely.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup, but they can make it really inconvenient, to the point where law-abiding citizens will likely just give up.

I haven't and don't intend to buy anything illegal, I just don't want the government tracking everything I buy. But there are limits to what I'll put up with, so hopefully enough people like me will transact in Monero so the government locking things down will tick off enough people to discourage them from doing so.

shortwavesurfer ,

Yep, and the best way to get that to occur is to help show people why they should be transacting with it. Take businesses, for example. Normal credit card transaction fees are 3%. Normal Monero transactions are 1 US penny. If you get a transaction that is 3 cents US, that's an expensive transaction.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup, and some online stores give a 5-10% discount for using Monero.

technocrit ,

It's also completely unsustainable like bitcoin. There's no long term future in proof-of-work.

shortwavesurfer , (edited )

Monero uses RandomX which must be done only on CPU which limits power consumption drastically and promotes decentralization rather than mining farms like bitcoin. Both of those combined will make it much easier for utilities to handle it. Since one utility won't be getting hit with extreme load from mining farms all in one single area, such as Texas. You've also got to consider how much electricity does the banking industry as a whole use for building their buildings, bringing employees to work, shuttling money around in armored trucks, all that stuff. There's probably tons I'm not even thinking of. Proof of work is better than proof of stake simply because a governmyth can't print more of their crap fiat currency and buy up more stake in order to hurt the network. If a government wants to attack Ethereum, they just print more fiat currency and buy Ethereum. If they want to attack Bitcoin or Monero, they have to buy the equipment to do so and then plug it in and use power. They would have to sacrifice something real in order to do that.

Edit: https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/06/13/bitcoin-mining-stabilizes-power-grids-strained-by-ai-data-centers/

HAL_9_TRILLION ,

Tin-foil hat time but I'd be willing to bet they have mechanisms to do something resembling naked shorting with crypto. I have no idea what that voodoo might be, but they conjure shares out of thin air for shorting stocks, and they've managed to package crypto into ETFs some-fucking-how so why not. I feel like I'm increasingly noticing that nothing really seems to crash anymore.

XeroxCool ,

Bitcoin has been moving like the stock market since 2020. Big investors got involved, small investors lost trust in stocks. I don't fully expect the current halving to cause the rally like all the other times it halved. That is assuming it doesn't keep bombing shortly after breaking $69,420, what I suspect is a meme sell limit price.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Everybody sell. You know how you can't really tell when a stock is going to tank? Well, this time it's like we're doing economics with training wheels. You won't get hurt, and you can see what's coming. You just gotta sell now before the floor drops out.

shortwavesurfer , (edited )

I'm quite frankly glad to see this, because that means that the United States will have no ability to ban it, what with the ETFs and everything, and as long as you can buy any kind of crypto at all, you can buy Monero. Also, the launch of decentralized peer-to-peer exchanges is helping to give the middle finger to the government.

Edit: I am getting out of the dollar as fast as I can while there are still fools gullible enough to accept a depreciating currency.

Lost_My_Mind ,

.........I'm so out of the loop here. I want to say I disagree with you, because it sounds insane, but I don't know enough about the subject matter to dispute it. What the hell is Monero?

TheLowestStone ,
@TheLowestStone@lemmy.world avatar

Yet another fake currency for drug dealers.

shortwavesurfer ,

I don't know. Personally, I haven't dealt any drugs using it. But I have purchased groceries for the last year and a half with it. You have a right to be private with your money. Would you want absolutely everybody knowing everything you spend your money on and when you spent it? Forever? Personally, I don't.

MagicShel ,

There's an easy solution for that.... cash.

shortwavesurfer ,

Can I send an envelope full of cash to Amazon to buy a product? Cash is great for the physical medium if you are in person face to face and can exchange a physical commodity but when you need to exchange value over the internet then cash isn't a real option

MagicShel ,

Is that how you buy groceries? Because not me.

shortwavesurfer ,

I buy groceries with Instacart and have them delivered. It saves me money since I'm not walking through the store and seeing all those items I can just get what I need and so I've done it that way for years

Lost_My_Mind ,

.......are you saying your reason for not going grocery shopping in person is because you'll fall victim to impulse buys, and advertising?

shortwavesurfer ,

No, but it definitely helps. The primary reason is because I'm blind, and so therefore, if I go into a grocery store, I have to ask for a shoppers' assistant to walk around with me and help me get stuff, which is quite frankly a pain in the ass.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Ah, alright, thats different. That I can understand.

TheLowestStone ,
@TheLowestStone@lemmy.world avatar

"Fake money for drug dealers" is just a general crypto joke from a meme I saw here on lemmy. It just so happens that the flavor of fake money that you fell in love with actually is for drug dealers.

You've got me curious now though. It's apparently important to you to keep the details of your grocery purchase completely private and that's totally fine if it makes you happy. I don't need to understand it to accept it. What I want to know is how far do you go to protect that privacy? Do you give Instacart your neighbor's address? Do you use a fake name?

shortwavesurfer ,

I haven't gone that far. It's mainly online privacy I care most about, and financial privacy. I mean... I use lemmy, mastodon, proton, degoogled my devices, run linux, DNS level ad/tracker/malware blockers, use Monero, Signal, SimpleX, have no fb, x, insta, tiktok, etc.

As for the whole fake money thing, anything can be money. It's just what people choose to call money. And since I can use it to buy groceries, and pay my phone bill, and pay my insurance, and buy products I want, it is money. You know the money most used to purchase drugs is the US dollar?

TheLowestStone ,
@TheLowestStone@lemmy.world avatar

Lol, yes I do know that. I've spent quite a few US dollars on drugs myself.

I really was just joking. I'm not judgemental about privacy, drugs, or most things really. I also realize that ALL money is fake money that only has value because we have agreed that it does. If the topic had been short term rentals instead of crypto, I'd have made an "illegal hotel chain" joke instead.

Also, If I offended you I'm sorry. I hope you have a good night (or day if you live far away from me).

shortwavesurfer ,

Sorry, I might have come off a bit harsher at the end of that last message than I meant to. I get it so often here because so many people want to just bash crypto without ever thinking about any good sides about it.

0x0 ,

Riiiiiight... no drug dealer in their right mind would ever use USD cash...

shortwavesurfer ,

Monero is cash. You cannot see who sent Monero to who or how much they sent. It's completely private. The government has a half a million dollar bounty out for anybody who can break it and it's been out for years because nobody has been able to do so.

technocrit ,

I really want to hate crypto but I don't know anything about it.

This is surprisingly common.

TheBigBrother , (edited )

Bitcoin it's nothing else than the way the west it's fighting against the Chinese economy, it's just making money anonymously where there is no money. Better than using the classic central bank method.

technocrit ,

This is somewhat of a conspiracy theory but I'm surprised it's not a more popular conspiracy theory. I've always had the suspicion that crypto is an op by cia/nsa or like japan or somebody.

TheBigBrother ,

What's better to sustain a fake economy than a mechanism to make money from nowhere anonymously? I mean isn't like someone will push a button and do it, it's more like the bigger owners of bitcoin are a handful of people/corps and they can easily coordinate their actions to manipulate the value. WO mention it trading on the stock market..

NaibofTabr ,

Taking pointers from Elon's playbook with Doge, I see.

treadful ,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

“Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency],” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday.

lol, no shot he wrote this.

MagicShel ,

He probably can't even read it. "Man. Woman. Camera. CBDC."

joekar1990 ,

He did just have a fund raiser in SF with some billionaire crypto bros....so he may not have

WhatIsThePointAnyway ,

Bet Trump has moved campaign money to buying bitcoin through some shady investment vehicle.

Lost_My_Mind ,

It's like trying to watch a 5 year old lie about eatching chocolate, when theres chocolate on their nose.

It would be funny and adorable if he weren't so hateful and racist, with real world consequences.

fruitycoder ,

If this is a move to commit dark money campaign fraud again before his sentencing on the last case of it is even done I would want to see a live reaction of the judge when he hears that

WhatIsThePointAnyway ,

Don’t think anyone is all that surprised by the depths of Trump’s corruption at this point.

Eol ,

Make me some money!!

Lost_My_Mind ,

Its trump. He bankrupted THREE casinos. And you trust THIS GUY to make you money???

Eol , (edited )

If they buy crypto like his bumper stickers I will make money. It's not like the stock market and crypto aren't already played out by rich people playing games. It's just another corrupt rise on the chart it will all always crash.
(Not an endorsement... I already have crypto.)

Fisch ,
@Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

This post reminded me that I also still had Bitcoin that I wanted to swap for Monero. Think I'm gonna wait a bit for the Trump supporters to buy in, they'll just do whatever he says without a second thought.

Fedizen ,

he couldn't even hide an affair.

myliltoehurts ,

Everyone who has not regarded crypto as a scam will certainly do, once he's done with the pump and dump he's setting up here.

voracitude ,

I dunno man, the trumpets still buy whatever shit he shovels out and they don't seem to have caught on that he's a scammer yet...

Lost_My_Mind ,

A fool and their money are soon seperated.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Sunk cost is a strong salesman.

technocrit ,

Bitcoin is only a few points off it's all time high... Who's getting scammed by that?

(On the other hand I would recommend switching to a sustainable crypto.)

myliltoehurts ,

What I expect will happen: have his followers buy in at current high price point -> price goes higher -> him and his rich whale friends sell -> price goes down -> the people who just invested because he promised big stonks but realistically can't afford to leave their money in for years panic and sell -> price goes down -> him and rich friends buy in again.

Sure, it's mostly his followers getting scammed, but if this does happen I can't imagine them not vocally blaming BTC for losing their money - which would likely fuel the crypto is a scam narrative.

Maybe his words are not influential enough to actually sway the price and nothing will come of it though, but based on the previous things he has done (his NFTs, the truth social stocks) if he has the opportunity to take money from his supporters, he certainly will.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Crypto isn't a scam, though lots of cryptocurrencies are scams. Don't buy crypto to try to get rich or even as an investment, get it if you want to buy stuff with it. Monero is a great cryptocurrency for that, and you can tell it's doing well by how many countries are threatened enough by it to make it harder to get (it has truly private transactions, just like cash).

I don't think he's doing any sort of pump and dump, he just wants crypto bros to vote for him. He tried courting libertarians at their convention (and rightfully got booed), and now he's courting crypto bros specifically (many libertarians are into crypto). He's just trying to expand his base a bit.

myliltoehurts ,

I didn't say crypto was a scam, but it is regarded as a scam in general and as you said, it's pretty easy to get scammed trading it or using it if you don't know what you're doing - which would definitely be true for anyone buying in on a public figure's advice.

It's also an incredibly volatile market which is relatively easily influenced by large players without much regulation. If he does have the influence to manage to impact it, I am pretty sure he would happily take his gains from his followers. If he doesn't, well let's just hope all the people who buy in without any research don't lose their money by selling as soon as the next crypto winter comes for a massive loss.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

You're strongly implying it:

Everyone who has not regarded crypto as a scam will certainly do

It is easy to get scammed, but it's also easy to get scammed with legitimate-sounding services. I just had a scammer try to steal my money from my bank by claiming to be the fraud department, does that mean the banking industry is a scam? People on the sidelines will try to make a buck in any industry. What about cosmetics? There are plenty of MLMs that peddle cosmetics, and they're scams, but that doesn't make all cosmetics or even MLMs scams (e.g. tupperware is an MLM and not a scam imo).

Whether crypto is a volatile market doesn't have anything to do with being a scam, it just increases the number of people trying to make a quick buck, and some of those will try to pump and dump or pull some other scam. Before crypto, that was more common with stocks, and it's fairly common today with third party resellers of various things.

I don't think Trump is trying to pull a crypto scam here, I think he's just trying to get elected. He wants the scammers to promote him, as well as the crypto apologists. He just wants more people talking about him so he can increase his chances of being elected.

myliltoehurts ,

Sorry, but I think you're reading into my words something they didn't say or imply. In fact I tried my best to avoid wording it in a way that implies crypto is a scam (because I don't believe it myself).

What you've quoted strictly implies 2 things:

  1. There are people who consider crypto a scam
  2. Everyone will regard crypto as a scam after trump's future actions.

The 2nd is definitely an exaggeration, but neither of them claim crypto is a scam only that it has an image that it is - which I maintain it does with a significant portion of people.

I do think trump picked crypto as a target for his attention because it's a volatile and under regulated market he may be able exploit to try to make money off of whoever listens to him. I hope I'm wrong though.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I apologize, there's a lot of anti-crypto group think here on Lemmy, and your comment read like that. There absolutely are a lot of crypto scams and reasons to dislike the technology generally, but there are real problems being solved and ways to use the technology productively, so I get a bit aggressive in pointing out that the group think is imprecise at best.

The second being an exaggeration is what made it look like group think.

trump... make money

Idk, I honestly think his entire focus is on getting elected. Yeah, he wouldn't say no to more money, but I think it's in service of getting himself onto office again, not to get even more rich. I think he saw hating crypto as advantageous in the past, and now he sees supporting crypto as advantageous.

Yeah, maybe it's just a grift. I guess we'll see.

Here's the evidence I see:

  • Trump and Biden are close in the polls
  • Trump speaks at the Libertarian convention (many are into crypto) and gets booed
  • with RFK in, the election could come down to a small number of votes

I think he's trying to convince conservative leaning libertarians, single-issue RFK voters (he's pro-crypto too), and other fringe voters to vote for him instead of whatever protest vote they'd normally go with. He's not trying to appeal to Biden voters, he's trying to pull protest votes back in.

myliltoehurts ,

No problem!

Your thinking seems more insightful than mine.

My reasoning that he is mainly after the money is that in the past year he has been paying a lot of legal fees and fines, while trying to run a campaign. He had his NFT collection which made him a quick buck to then immediately floor in value, same for trump media stocks - except they then skyrocketed again, and now flooring again. So.. Just seems like something he'd do.

The 2nd reason is that crypto is a very divisive topic with loads of people hating on it - including banks and some other financial institutions. I'd expect it's a double edged sword for supporters, but maybe he's gaining more from it than losing in terms of votes.

Considering that it's been a few days since he made his statement and there hasn't been massive movement on BTC price, he's either not influential enough to impact it or I was wrong.

/shrug

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yeah, you might have a point. Let's see which scam, electoral or financial, he's trying to pull. Or maybe it's both... I'm guessing things will heat up one way or another as we get closer to the election.

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

its a flexible valuation he can manipulate with words and far less regulation. makes sense for a public con artist

barsquid ,

This is it. He had a taste of pump and dump securities fraud with the SPAC. He has spotted a new scam.

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

Almost like he learned from Musk and his manipulation of Dogecoin or whatever

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Last month, his campaign began accepting crypto donations, calling the decentralized currency a reflection of Trump’s commitment to “freedom over socialistic government control.”

“Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency],” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday.

The former President met with the country’s largest Bitcoin mining companies on Tuesday night, according to The New York Times and several photos posted by crypto executives.

Trump may be hard-pressed for cash these days given his recent conviction, ongoing legal cases, and, oh yeah, the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election that’s less than five months away.

The crypto community, which is searching for allies in D.C. to create friendlier policies, could offer a meaningful source of funding to Trump in this critical final stretch.

Tech venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya also just threw a fundraiser for Trump last week, which drew high-profile Bay Area executives and big donations.


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