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All Forum Posts by: V.G Jason
V.G Jason has started 15 posts and replied 3028 times.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
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Quote from @Ken M.:
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@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
You should watch the Big Short to understand that the 2008 real estate crash was based on a big fraudulent scam called MDS and CDOs.
But the government backstopped the loses, for the banks ;-) The biggest scam is real estate property taxes. Under the current system you can never really own your real estate even if it's paid off.
1) I assume you mean MBS not MDS. MBS has been around the late 1970s & are still around. Why hasn't there been more crashes?
Yep, I mean MBS. Thanks for the correction. But, you failed to mention the fraud and the CDOs. Investors **assume** that bulk loans that are originated by "legitimate" banks, which institutional investors buy from, have been properly underwritten and insured. That is what they are told. That is what they think they're buying. Properly underwritten, low risk loans.
If the secondary market marks "B" paper, as "A" paper and Say, S&P grades them as "A" paper and AIG insures those tranches, you have total deception and fraud.
When banks lend a lot of money to people with no income and no verifiable way of repaying, yet mark it as "A" paper, you get CDOs and then synthetic CDOs on top of that, before long you have a product as speculative as BitCoin. (BitCoin, Which is backed by nothing. No hard asset, no insurance and no taxation.) And in lending, payments started getting missed. In 2008, that was on a grand scale. At least there was a 10 cent on the dollar hard asset in property.
I originated a bunch of those loans when I was first starting out as a loan officer for a mortgage broker in the late 1990's bailing people out of foreclosure. (WAMAU, Option One, First Option, OCWEN) and made a ton of money. Commissions were very, very high. We took the borrower's missed payments (arrears) of tens of thousands of dollars, from their existing loan of 8% and put them into a refinance at 14%. Well, my cohorts did, I simply showed the borrower the numbers and they'd freak out. So, I bought the foreclosing properties subject to, brought the loans current, gave the sellers their equity, rehabbed as a rental or flipped it. I made my first million doing those.
But, the point is, if a guy falls behind on his 8% loan, how is he going to make a payment at 14% ? I can do simple math, it rarely worked out. :-)
That problem doesn't really exist today.
And Bitcoin has to go through that same kind of cycle for people to realize the smoke and mirrors the blockchain money world is. There is nothing behind it. Except greed and hope.
It's just a simple question. I was getting to the other points. MBS are instruments, they're not why the the GFC happened. The inappropriate leverage in them coupled with high expectations (qualified loans) caused the crash. CDOs same thing, came about in the late 80s still around. Can be a perfectly fine instrument. When you have inappropriate leverage, rarely do good things work out.
The instrument is solid, the issue is the underwriter, issuer and the buyer. I don't blame MBS, or CDOs, much like I don't blame Bitcoin. I blame the bank/exchange, I blame the user/borrower, and I blame the storage/smart contracts/underwriter.
That's my point. I don't blame loans for the GFC. I blame the issuer, underwriter and borrower. The accountability needs to stick, it's not on the instrument. I don't blame Bitcoin for "heists", it's on the user, exchange, and storage mechanism.
Greed & fear always dictate the markets. That's never going to change, don't confuse that with the underlying instrument being fraudulent or scam.
Reckon that with the action of greed being conveyed via leverage. We'll see it again, like we always do.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
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Quote from @Ken M.:
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Quote from @James Hamling:
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@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
This is what is coined "SPIN".
Look it's simple.
For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems.
Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity.
If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE.
How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW....
Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%.
For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion.
And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap.
So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds.
Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such.
In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc.....
You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable.
1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it.
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.
Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.
Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others.
For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable.
That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.
You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk.
Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure.
Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it.
Again-- IF, THEN.
You're missing the forest for the trees.
This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol.
Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy.
They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life.
When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple.
And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it.
BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value.
It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $.
Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????".
Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......
I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing.
Maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold again.
"Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure."
It will scare some folks, but it's not the end of the journey for BTC. Just like SBF/FTX scared tons of folks, it still came back. FWIW, I got into BTC as an allocation after Mt Gox. That did not scare me, it's actually where I started to educate myself. And actually where some of the largest investors came in, too. Little history will show some of the largest institutional players(as individuals not on the behalf of institutions) jumped in also in mid 2014-early 2015.
There's no missing the forest for the trees here-- we believe the same outcome for most assets(in the short term). We'll continue to disagree on the (long term) outcome of Bitcoin and that's fine. We see it in a binary fold; you see the headwinds as the reason it goes to 0, I see the headwinds as opportunities to buy. Time will tell.
I also said I am not a diehard or maximalist, I just believe the mechanism has a lot of rumors and little facts circulating around it. Like anonymity, and other ********.
But to go back to the how & why part-- it's leverage. It's not people selling BTC to buy Ford or O.
The entire market has/had too much of expectations and engaged in too much leverage. @Chris Seveney and I have been saying this for along time and even joked about whose more cynical/pessimistic about it. In that other locked thread, @Henry Clark and I were saying there'll be a massive drawdown on equities.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford, they're selling BTC because they are overleveraged & expectations are missing because everything is pricing for perfection.
And I mean everything is pricing for perfection;
Houses are priced to date the rate, marry the house like some folks spew. That changed the valuation and folks are compromised with their monthly payment. Some are underwater with even higher rates when agents told them to wait till 2025. Good luck. There's little liquidity here so it's usually the last fall.
Equities were priced for perfect earnings, any beat but not significantly higher is a net negative. We're seeing that reckoning begin now.
Crypto stormed 40-80% higher post trump presidency based off the premise of a pro-crypto president with little tangible strategy on how and what it'll be to get there. They bought the talk, not the walk. Unfortunately, they bought a giant share of that gain with leverage.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford or O. Such a ridiculous take, they are selling BTC cause they are overleveraged. Just like they're selling mega cap and tech. Too much expectations and too much leverage.
And like I said before, go identify where the leverage is. The most right now is BTC, it does not mean it's dead when it gets pounded. It just means it'll get pounded.
"Any leverage in any market is going to radically flip on it's head. Identify where that is, and you found the opportunity.
In America, it's almost every market. So all NAV in every field will take a circumstantial hit."
Burned by Crypto, Built by Real Estate: My Journey from Rock Bottom to 10+ Deals/Year
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/1234436-burne..."Then the crypto crash hit, and we lost 90% of our funds."
You're just proving my point about buying what falls due to overlevegage.
Late 2022, I bought more. They sold and realized a large loss.
Identify the leverage, and buy the fall. You're just exposing folks who are **** at understanding it and one's who've made a career in it.
Go check where BTC traded late 2022 and it's current price. BTC, like other assets, need to be held for some term. Go check returns from late 2022 vs RE, not to say this will also be the trend but since you are asking for it. Take a look.
This is also my point James, yes folks like this guy panic sell and life is "ruined". You're not wrong about that, I just think the support bid & participants are not as weak as you suspect. 2022 was $12k expectations, $16k real, no institutions. Today I think it's high 30s with lots of institutions. No idea about nations.
Here's a trick question, Ken. Why did RE collapse in 08-09?
Is RE fraudulent or a scam?
You should watch the Big Short to understand that the 2008 real estate crash was based on a big fraudulent scam called MDS and CDOs.
But the government backstopped the loses, for the banks ;-) The biggest scam is real estate property taxes. Under the current system you can never really own your real estate even if it's paid off.
1) I assume you mean MBS not MDS. MBS has been around the late 1970s & are still around. Why hasn't there been more crashes?
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
- Investor
- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @Steve K.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
This is what is coined "SPIN".
Look it's simple.
For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems.
Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity.
If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE.
How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW....
Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%.
For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion.
And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap.
So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds.
Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such.
In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc.....
You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable.
1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it.
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.
Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.
Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others.
For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable.
That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.
You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk.
Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure.
Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it.
Again-- IF, THEN.
You're missing the forest for the trees.
This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol.
Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy.
They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life.
When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple.
And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it.
BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value.
It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $.
Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????".
Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......
I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing.
Maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold again.
"Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure."
It will scare some folks, but it's not the end of the journey for BTC. Just like SBF/FTX scared tons of folks, it still came back. FWIW, I got into BTC as an allocation after Mt Gox. That did not scare me, it's actually where I started to educate myself. And actually where some of the largest investors came in, too. Little history will show some of the largest institutional players(as individuals not on the behalf of institutions) jumped in also in mid 2014-early 2015.
There's no missing the forest for the trees here-- we believe the same outcome for most assets(in the short term). We'll continue to disagree on the (long term) outcome of Bitcoin and that's fine. We see it in a binary fold; you see the headwinds as the reason it goes to 0, I see the headwinds as opportunities to buy. Time will tell.
I also said I am not a diehard or maximalist, I just believe the mechanism has a lot of rumors and little facts circulating around it. Like anonymity, and other ********.
But to go back to the how & why part-- it's leverage. It's not people selling BTC to buy Ford or O.
The entire market has/had too much of expectations and engaged in too much leverage. @Chris Seveney and I have been saying this for along time and even joked about whose more cynical/pessimistic about it. In that other locked thread, @Henry Clark and I were saying there'll be a massive drawdown on equities.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford, they're selling BTC because they are overleveraged & expectations are missing because everything is pricing for perfection.
And I mean everything is pricing for perfection;
Houses are priced to date the rate, marry the house like some folks spew. That changed the valuation and folks are compromised with their monthly payment. Some are underwater with even higher rates when agents told them to wait till 2025. Good luck. There's little liquidity here so it's usually the last fall.
Equities were priced for perfect earnings, any beat but not significantly higher is a net negative. We're seeing that reckoning begin now.
Crypto stormed 40-80% higher post trump presidency based off the premise of a pro-crypto president with little tangible strategy on how and what it'll be to get there. They bought the talk, not the walk. Unfortunately, they bought a giant share of that gain with leverage.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford or O. Such a ridiculous take, they are selling BTC cause they are overleveraged. Just like they're selling mega cap and tech. Too much expectations and too much leverage.
And like I said before, go identify where the leverage is. The most right now is BTC, it does not mean it's dead when it gets pounded. It just means it'll get pounded.
"Any leverage in any market is going to radically flip on it's head. Identify where that is, and you found the opportunity.
In America, it's almost every market. So all NAV in every field will take a circumstantial hit."
Burned by Crypto, Built by Real Estate: My Journey from Rock Bottom to 10+ Deals/Year
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/1234436-burne..."Then the crypto crash hit, and we lost 90% of our funds."
You're just proving my point about buying what falls due to overlevegage.
Late 2022, I bought more. They sold and realized a large loss.
Identify the leverage, and buy the fall. You're just exposing folks who are **** at understanding it and one's who've made a career in it.
Go check where BTC traded late 2022 and it's current price. BTC, like other assets, need to be held for some term. Go check returns from late 2022 vs RE, not to say this will also be the trend but since you are asking for it. Take a look.
This is also my point James, yes folks like this guy panic sell and life is "ruined". You're not wrong about that, I just think the support bid & participants are not as weak as you suspect. 2022 was $12k expectations, $16k real, no institutions. Today I think it's high 30s with lots of institutions. No idea about nations.
Here's a trick question, Ken. Why did RE collapse in 08-09?
Is RE fraudulent or a scam?
Yes, I did buy some TSLA today & NASDAQ(via QQQ) as a hedge & as an entry at $224 & $469.
I have no shorts on these. I'm just entering a strategic long in these at certain levels against my widespread short-term shorts. Not signaling these are the lows or the bottom, by any stretch.
Lots of things I'm watching, but few concentrated positions. Won't take that bet, but believe it has more room down by end of Q2 maybe not EOW. The humanoid object will be a rally whenever it's announced, then a hit when it's delayed.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
- Investor
- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
This is what is coined "SPIN".
Look it's simple.
For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems.
Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity.
If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE.
How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW....
Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%.
For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion.
And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap.
So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds.
Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such.
In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc.....
You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable.
1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it.
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.
Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.
Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others.
For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable.
That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.
You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk.
Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure.
Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it.
Again-- IF, THEN.
You're missing the forest for the trees.
This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol.
Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy.
They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life.
When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple.
And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it.
BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value.
It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $.
Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????".
Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......
I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing.
Maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold again.
"Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure."
It will scare some folks, but it's not the end of the journey for BTC. Just like SBF/FTX scared tons of folks, it still came back. FWIW, I got into BTC as an allocation after Mt Gox. That did not scare me, it's actually where I started to educate myself. And actually where some of the largest investors came in, too. Little history will show some of the largest institutional players(as individuals not on the behalf of institutions) jumped in also in mid 2014-early 2015.
There's no missing the forest for the trees here-- we believe the same outcome for most assets(in the short term). We'll continue to disagree on the (long term) outcome of Bitcoin and that's fine. We see it in a binary fold; you see the headwinds as the reason it goes to 0, I see the headwinds as opportunities to buy. Time will tell.
I also said I am not a diehard or maximalist, I just believe the mechanism has a lot of rumors and little facts circulating around it. Like anonymity, and other ********.
But to go back to the how & why part-- it's leverage. It's not people selling BTC to buy Ford or O.
The entire market has/had too much of expectations and engaged in too much leverage. @Chris Seveney and I have been saying this for along time and even joked about whose more cynical/pessimistic about it. In that other locked thread, @Henry Clark and I were saying there'll be a massive drawdown on equities.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford, they're selling BTC because they are overleveraged & expectations are missing because everything is pricing for perfection.
And I mean everything is pricing for perfection;
Houses are priced to date the rate, marry the house like some folks spew. That changed the valuation and folks are compromised with their monthly payment. Some are underwater with even higher rates when agents told them to wait till 2025. Good luck. There's little liquidity here so it's usually the last fall.
Equities were priced for perfect earnings, any beat but not significantly higher is a net negative. We're seeing that reckoning begin now.
Crypto stormed 40-80% higher post trump presidency based off the premise of a pro-crypto president with little tangible strategy on how and what it'll be to get there. They bought the talk, not the walk. Unfortunately, they bought a giant share of that gain with leverage.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford or O. Such a ridiculous take, they are selling BTC cause they are overleveraged. Just like they're selling mega cap and tech. Too much expectations and too much leverage.
And like I said before, go identify where the leverage is. The most right now is BTC, it does not mean it's dead when it gets pounded. It just means it'll get pounded.
"Any leverage in any market is going to radically flip on it's head. Identify where that is, and you found the opportunity.
In America, it's almost every market. So all NAV in every field will take a circumstantial hit."
Burned by Crypto, Built by Real Estate: My Journey from Rock Bottom to 10+ Deals/Year
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/1234436-burne..."Then the crypto crash hit, and we lost 90% of our funds."
You're just proving my point about buying what falls due to overlevegage.
Late 2022, I bought more. They sold and realized a large loss.
Identify the leverage, and buy the fall. You're just exposing folks who are **** at understanding it and one's who've made a career in it.
Go check where BTC traded late 2022 and it's current price. BTC, like other assets, need to be held for some term. Go check returns from late 2022 vs RE, not to say this will also be the trend but since you are asking for it. Take a look.
This is also my point James, yes folks like this guy panic sell and life is "ruined". You're not wrong about that, I just think the support bid & participants are not as weak as you suspect. 2022 was $12k expectations, $16k real, no institutions. Today I think it's high 30s with lots of institutions. No idea about nations.
Here's a trick question, Ken. Why did RE collapse in 08-09?
Is RE fraudulent or a scam?
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
- Investor
- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
This is what is coined "SPIN".
Look it's simple.
For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems.
Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity.
If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE.
How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW....
Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%.
For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion.
And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap.
So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds.
Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such.
In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc.....
You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable.
1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it.
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.
Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.
Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others.
For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable.
That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.
You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk.
Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure.
Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it.
Again-- IF, THEN.
You're missing the forest for the trees.
This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol.
Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy.
They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life.
When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple.
And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it.
BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value.
It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $.
Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????".
Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......
I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing.
Maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold again.
"Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure."
It will scare some folks, but it's not the end of the journey for BTC. Just like SBF/FTX scared tons of folks, it still came back. FWIW, I got into BTC as an allocation after Mt Gox. That did not scare me, it's actually where I started to educate myself. And actually where some of the largest investors came in, too. Little history will show some of the largest institutional players(as individuals not on the behalf of institutions) jumped in also in mid 2014-early 2015.
There's no missing the forest for the trees here-- we believe the same outcome for most assets(in the short term). We'll continue to disagree on the (long term) outcome of Bitcoin and that's fine. We see it in a binary fold; you see the headwinds as the reason it goes to 0, I see the headwinds as opportunities to buy. Time will tell.
I also said I am not a diehard or maximalist, I just believe the mechanism has a lot of rumors and little facts circulating around it. Like anonymity, and other ********.
But to go back to the how & why part-- it's leverage. It's not people selling BTC to buy Ford or O.
The entire market has/had too much of expectations and engaged in too much leverage. @Chris Seveney and I have been saying this for along time and even joked about whose more cynical/pessimistic about it. In that other locked thread, @Henry Clark and I were saying there'll be a massive drawdown on equities.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford, they're selling BTC because they are overleveraged & expectations are missing because everything is pricing for perfection.
And I mean everything is pricing for perfection;
Houses are priced to date the rate, marry the house like some folks spew. That changed the valuation and folks are compromised with their monthly payment. Some are underwater with even higher rates when agents told them to wait till 2025. Good luck. There's little liquidity here so it's usually the last fall.
Equities were priced for perfect earnings, any beat but not significantly higher is a net negative. We're seeing that reckoning begin now.
Crypto stormed 40-80% higher post trump presidency based off the premise of a pro-crypto president with little tangible strategy on how and what it'll be to get there. They bought the talk, not the walk. Unfortunately, they bought a giant share of that gain with leverage.
They're not selling BTC to buy Ford or O. Such a ridiculous take, they are selling BTC cause they are overleveraged. Just like they're selling mega cap and tech. Too much expectations and too much leverage.
And like I said before, go identify where the leverage is. The most right now is BTC, it does not mean it's dead when it gets pounded. It just means it'll get pounded.
"Any leverage in any market is going to radically flip on it's head. Identify where that is, and you found the opportunity.
In America, it's almost every market. So all NAV in every field will take a circumstantial hit."
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
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- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
Let's try this another way because you have reading comprehension issues.
No **** the money is gone. The question is why? User error & storage, like I've mentioned several times. If my AMEX got compromised is it the USD's fault?
Money is gone, explain that.
The answer is no, it's my fault and my lack/AMEX lack of security protocols. This isn't rocket science, I am sure you're capable of understanding this.
And before you harp on AMEX, given your lack of understanding this is globally an issue with all providers. Zelle, venmo, paypal more domestically, that money isn't coming back. So again, underlying question is my USD at fault? Or is it me and the provider at fault?
if someone hacks my bank account and steals my money, the bank takes the loss, not me. The bank makes me whole. If not, the regulators shut them down.
If my crypto gets hacked, it doesn't matter who hacks it, it's gone. There is no one to make me whole and crypto won't be shut down. Totally different. There is no one to turn to if crypto goes bad. And it goes bad plenty.
Banks do not refund scams, they refund fraud.
Big difference.
You're responsible for the scam. They're responsible for fraud.
In Bybits case, they're SAFE wallet got scammed via security mishaps. Ethereum did not behave like a scam, nor like a fraud. Do you understand the difference?
As for James's point about heists coming more active, no doubt. Anything that becomes more valuable will get that attention. It doesn't mean the underlying investment is a fraud, just means your process needs to be tight to secure them. Huge difference.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
- Investor
- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
This is what is coined "SPIN".
Look it's simple.
For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems.
Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity.
If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE.
How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW....
Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%.
For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion.
And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap.
So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds.
Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such.
In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc.....
You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable.
1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it.
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.
Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.
Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others.
For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable.
That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.
You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk.
Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure.
Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it.
Again-- IF, THEN.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
- Investor
- Posts 3,074
- Votes 3,112
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever.
It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever.
I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too.
I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid.
When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks.
The new shiny toy is ai.
Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).
People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world.
In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32.
BTC is the very definition of volatile.
No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air.
And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.
The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before.
Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway.
As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai.
As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it.
So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins.
AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.
It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe.
It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements.
And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable.
Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices?
It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs.
Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember.
Words hype and hopes.
I operate on facts, math and certainty.
That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.
BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.
BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now.
BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous.
Oops.
"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65
North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."
Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.
Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced. So again, it's user error and storage.
In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?
Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding.
Let's try this another way because you have reading comprehension issues.
No **** the money is gone. The question is why? User error & storage, like I've mentioned several times. If my AMEX got compromised is it the USD's fault?
Money is gone, explain that.
The answer is no, it's my fault and my lack/AMEX lack of security protocols. This isn't rocket science, I am sure you're capable of understanding this.
And before you harp on AMEX, given your lack of understanding this is globally an issue with all providers. Zelle, venmo, paypal more domestically, that money isn't coming back. So again, underlying question is my USD at fault? Or is it me and the provider at fault?
Post: Finish This Sentence…
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Quote from @Peter W.:
Quote from @David Fern:
I only gave this about 30 seconds of thought, but here’s my shoot from the hip answer ⬇️
I’d invest it in 2 different OOS markets (for diversification) that have high likelihood for appreciation. I’d pay cash for all the homes, putting $500k in each market. These would be markets that my family and I would want to visit for travel, and also to check on the properties from time to time.
I know this would not produce the greatest return, but I am 42YO with younger kids, and that immediate cash flow would really free up options for me and my family. I’ve got other mortgages in my local market that are more of the long-term play. Plus, I could refi and pull some cash out if mortgage rates ever get back down in the mid/low 4’s.
Fun to dream about!
This was my initial thought--an extra 4-5k/month is significant even if the total returns would be subpar. Having slept on it, I would buy a 3 rentals in my current buy box (25% down on ~300k each) as well as a vacation beach property (40% down on approximately 800k-1million) and a small mountain property (20% down on ~400k). There would likely be enough left over to buy more single family long term rentals in my current buy box at 20% down, but I would wait until the previous properties stabilized.
Something to chew on is take your first statement & David's example-- and reinvest proceeds into another asset. Realize gains on those assets, and re-invest more. See where I'm going? Nothing out of the ordinary, but lots of resistance.
All cash properties are the devil here. How you play your cards can give you a ton of optionality.
Post: Putting $1M into Crypto
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Quote from @Peter W.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Peter W.:
The primary use cases of crypto is 1.) Gambling 2.) Avoiding capital control laws i.e. move money between different countries when laws disallow it. For example if you had a bunch of money in a Russian bank and you wanted to get it back to America. 3.) Criminal transactions.
There are a lot of folks who see it as a good store of value (especially Bitcoin with it's fixed supply). I do think it's use case as an alternative currency is interesting, but there currently isn't a need until the dollar collapses.
This is an asset with a lot of volatility.
How would you move money from Russia to America via crypto and bypass the laws?
To and from America, specifically, I am curious about and actually withdraw it. I want to know how because every American exchange takes your ID and any wallet transfer from specific countries have the exchange calling you and verifying information. Blockchain outs you.
America has no ability to control the crypto, just the exchanges. There's a very firm underlying there & understanding that is key.
Only cold hard cash let's you do this in America. I've tried to move money via USDT through exchanges to Croatia via America. Both Coin base & Gemini stopped me from US and believe it or not FTX stopped me in Croatia. I was transparent as it was for property (purchasing), they did not allow it.
Criminals do it in a different form--find countries that don't verify, check, or confirm. Basically, black market exchanges and you then withdraw into the local currency. Your crypto sells for 80c on the dollar and your exchange rate is 70c on the dollar. The bybit hack of $1.5m likely got them $900m-1b not 100% due to how you have to liquidate.
Well, I was going to say local bitcoin (website for buying bitcoin not through exchanges but through individuals), but it looks like it has been shut down. So, I don't know anymore. The other opportunity would be to buy electricity to mine--but both are hard to do at scale.
Right. Other people's arguments against this show really the lack of knowledge--it's a lot more fluent than people give credit for and quickly dismissed due to a lack of understanding.
Let me say that again, I'm not a maximalist or a BTC 4 life guy like some folks are. I'm simply saying rather than discriminate, look under the hood and do your own thesis. Similarly, not asking you to embrace it. And not "recommending" it. Just stating my own views, not parroting others.
Form your own view, not parrot "tulip" mania or see bybit heist.
Most views against crypto suggest:
1) Money laundering or other criminal behavior
2) Anonymous, therefore, not capable of being legitimate or being adopted at scale.
3) Volatile
4) Risky to store, manage, hold, therefore prone to theft.
The reality is.
1) There's that happening in USD & other local currency. Almost impossible to eliminate criminal behavior(chart 1.a can show you changes). No one is going to a KYC entity and sanctioned entities is massive dropping. More adoption-- more KYC, more transparency, less volatility.
2. It's not anonymous. Blockchain is literally the most transparent system. It's not meant to be anonymous.
3. Volatile. Absolutely, in order for this to stop. There needs to be more adoption, and more sanctions against entities that cannot receive it(for breaching rules) and more KYC. As those two pick up, with adoption, you'll see vol drop. Markets behave like this. Irrespective of what some other posters think.
4. It is not risky to store or manage. Just don't keep it plain sight. This is like keeping your cash in the bank without Fed reserve backing of $250k, you're on your own. Don't keep it on the exchange or any web-based monitoring(cloud storage, keys on excel on cloud, crypto storage online). Hold it on your own set of keys, away from any possible inteference. Don't post, share, allow your keys anywhere. Don't accept "NFT" nonsense transfers on your Ethereum chain, or accept pool transfer on your BTC ledger chain and expose yourself. This is as basic as not accepting dumb text scams and email scams.
It's very sound proof and demands real independence. Operate within it's behavior, quite powerful. Deviate and you're exposed.
Before I say much more, let me be clear. I'm short BTC futures & Microstrategy. Long IBIT and long keys out the curve. My view: short-term (harsh) correction, long term net buyer. Positioned on equities in similar, yet different, fashion. The AI trade is every bit as vulnerable.
If anyone is truly against BTC, go short it out right. Time will tell how it goes, we can check back in March 2030, 2035, etc.