cryptonomics

There are a few things that we need to look at when comparing cryptocurrencies to bubbles. First, supply and demand. Second, the market. Third, value of money. The cryptocurrency bubble and the tulip bubble have some similarities, as well as some differences. When farmers see the price of crop A increasing dramatically, they have some choices. Ignore the price rise and continue to grow crop B, losing out on the potential gain in income, which some will do. This has no affect on crop A. If they are already growing crop A, then they will be able reinvest excess profits and grow more of their cash crop, crop A. This increases supply of crop A. If they are growing any other crop, and see a price rise in crop A, they will have an incentive to shift from their current crop at the end of the season, and grow a crop that will bring in more revenue (crop A). Increasing supply of crop A. However, increasing the supply of crop A won't happen over night, as crops take months to grow. As c...

If you think cryptos are worthless the scary reality is that your dollar is also worthless. You should become a gold bug. The reason for your dollar being worthless is because it isn’t backed by anything aside from a government that is set on devaluing your dollar by setting an inflation target of two percent. Does anyone remember when you could pick up a candy bar for ~$0.50? Better days, right? Now a candy bar is ~$0.89. Prices are increasing while quality is flatlining. Shouldn't the cost of a candy bar decrease over time as innovation/competition enters the market? @chriscanno The answer is: yes. Innovation and competition should lower prices, but the central bank is set the hold the cost of goods at a certain price with their inflation target. What is happening is that The Federal Reserve is digitally pumping money into the system to keep prices lower. What gives precious metals value is scarcity. If we all have ten ounces of gold because someone can just 3D pri...

The philosophical thought process behind currency has been around for centuries, and has continually evolved. Aristotle gave three functions of money: a means of exchange, measure of value, and a store of value for future transactions. Cryptocurrencies meet Aristotle's three functions of money, but there is still a link missing from this cryptocurrency chain. Averroes added a fourth: a reserve of purchasing power. Not only does money serve as a store of value, but money could be spent at any time without having the need to be sold. This is where cryptocurrencies fall short, and it seems that this could be one of the reasons that we see such sell offs in the cryptoverse. Cryptocurrencies have come a long way since their conception, and have done well (so far) under the 2017 lime light. In order for cryptocurrencies to reach the end goal of a being a true form of money, we will need to see adoption for payments receivable (such as retail) sector. Until then we will continue to ...

Most of us are familiar with our country's currency (insert your countries form of currency: USD CAD, JPY, GBP, CNY) wether it is physical or digital we are willing to exchange goods and services for it. For centuries, people of earth have relied, and trusted a third party to hold, and transfer, their currency. From the ancient templars escorting precious metals across the globe on behalf of others, or exchanging them for ancient bank notes; to bankers as we know them today holding our money. As society has advanced, so has the banking system. In the digital world, we have become use to instant access. Instant access to whatever news organization happened to get their hands on a story first followed by a flood of other sources, even if the original is incorrect. Instant access to photos, and status updates. Technology is wild. Hell, last year I was watching kids enter the augmented reality of Pokemon Go on their phone as my girlfriend and I walked the streets of Burlingame, C...

For over the last year, Wall Street has been on the verbal attack of Bitcoin. They claim it is a bubble, even as far as saying that it is worse than the tulip bubble, or Enron. "Buy gold, not Bitcoin" they say... Gold suuuuuucks. Bitcoin being somewhat of a decentralized currency has bankers shaking. It removes bankers from the equations. As more and more people adopt Bitcoin and altcoins, bankers edge closer to losing all that they have built. Viewing Bitcoin as more of a commodity, they have tried ushering people into gold instead. It is 2017, why buy gold? If I need to cash my gold it, I have to find someone who buys gold, haul my gold to the person, and probably get ripped off by the guy. If I am holding Bitcoin, I can sell it on an exchange from the comfort of my own home. Regulation. Nobody feels that Bitcoin needs regulation, except Morgan Stanley and other banks lol. Bitcoin doesn't need a central bank, and it doesn't need governmental regulation. China...

As we all know, Bitcoin has had a glorious 2017 despite receiving heavy criticism from Jamie Dimon  ( cnbc ),  Warren Buffet  ( fox biz ), and even Saudi Prince Alwaleed  ( fortune ). Its most recent tailwinds: CME Group. First to the scene of Bitcoin Derivatives trading was  LedgerX , and now CME Group start  Bitcoin derivatives  ( bloomberg ) by the end of year. The entrance of CME Group pushed the price of BTC (Bitcoin) from ~$6,000  to ~$7,400. follow me on twitter   @postmattern  and   @bitfuturist

Many people have argued against Cryptocurrencies. Some have gone as far to say that it is the next Enron, or the next ' tulip bulbs ' bubble.  They say that it is just market euphoria. IMHO: Market euphoria hasn't hit digital currencies or even the stock market's incredible bull run (at least not yet, I see a little too many bears out there, and crashes happen when you don't expect them... just. like. Enron). 2017 has seen Bitcoin's value launch to the moon, and one reason I see behind it is as follows. The election of  Donald Trump  saw a boom in most asset classes. Equity sectors from Tech to Finance to Industrials received bumps. Why? One reason is the promise of deregulation. The prior eight years our economy has been crippled by regulation as we the people of the United States of America sat back and assumed that there was no way out of this global economic downturn. Central banks across the globe were cutting interest rates to try and inject life int...

Hello again. It has been a while. Cryptocurrencies dealt blow with Ban in China in September sparking a sell off. However, Bitcoin quickly rebounded from a low of ~2,800 shortly after. Ethereum undergoes Byzantium hard fork, but struggles to advance against USD. Continues to trade ~$300. Bitcoin owners received a nice forking dividend from Bitcoin Cash  (BCC) (soon to have Bitcoin Gold and two others coming later this year). Don't worry about BTC Forks, just sit back and enjoy the dividend, but not with Coinbase .  It is true that Coinbase simplifies owning digital currencies, but Bitcoin forks, they hold the forking Currency. If you have any questions about BTC Forks, you may tweet me  @bitfuturist IBM teams up with Stellar. AMD crushes Q2 ER (earnings report), continues to stay humble on its GPU sales (despite the cryptocurrency mining boom), and moderately lowers guidance. When asked about AMD's reasoning behind lowing guidance, AMD's response was ...

When first looking in to buying Bitcoin, it can seem quite daunting. There are so many places to buy and sell. From my experience, I have found that the easiest way to buy and hold Bitcoin is to use Coinbase , even if our opinions don't align... The reason I have selected Coinbase is mainly because it is easy to use, and has a simplistic set up that doesn't require you to divulge, and verify, too much personal information. To set up, simply go to coinbase.com ,  or download the Coinbase app. Enter your First name, Last name, email, password, select your state, verify that you are not a robot, and agree to the 'terms and conditions'. Bam, that simple. *Update: they require more information including a photo ID Setting up a method of payment is quite easy, especially on the app. Once you add the card, and the card has been validated (which can take up to a few hours), then you can be a happy/unhappy Bitcoiner. I like coinbase for the simplicity, sleek design, a...

Advanced Micro Devices released Vega (not Frontier edition) today. It is sold out across the board on New Egg . Meanwhile, Ethereum's network hashrate has jumped up by 6 TH/s overnight. Currently at 86.7 TH/s Zcash's network hashrate seems to be climbing higher, but there is no way to be certain just yet. This is the second time this year that AMD has released a new GPU that has sold out the days of launch. The first was AMD's RX 570/580 which sold out very quickly at a price of ~$300. The new Vega GPUs have a starting price of $400 (Vega 56) and higher end of $699 (Vega 64). From what I have seen, these cards will do a great job mining for what you pay for them (around 35-45 MH/s). So if you are looking to buy, good luck. They will be sold out for a while. The RX 570/580, which was released around April 2017, is still impossible to get unless you are willing to pay double. Nvidia's GPUs are good for mining, but are generally too expensive. Miners have comp...

Bitcoin was highlighted on CNBC where the Bitcoin enthusiast set a target of 25,000 to 50,000 USD per coin, see it here BTC is trading around 3,575 USD and has had a steady ascent over the past week of 26% *BTC chart here BCH (Bitcoin Cash) seems to be continuing its wild ride, investers/traders still are uncertain of its future, as it has become another spinoff of Bitcoin. Current price is around .09 BTC. It is down 5% on the week, but up 12.8% on the day. It's intraday high peaked at .1 BTC *BCH chart here ETH (Ethereum) had a boost with other altcoins, which saw it peak at .094 BTC, since then it has had a pull back and is currently trading around .084 BTC or 300 USD. On the day it is down about 5% *ETH chart here ZEC (Zcash) had a nice little bump from ~.062 BTC ON 08.07, surged up to .075 BTC (08.08), but has erased almost all of its gains leaving it at a current level of .064 BTC *ZEC chart here LTC (Litecoin) although a one week chart has LTC down 13% against B...

Cryptocurrencies will provide a missing piece in the global economy by providing a borderless currency. There is no currency that is accepted globally. If you take a US dollar to a different country, it is hard to use it at any given location. Instead, you need to swap them out for the local currency. As an individual, this can make traveling abroad a little painful; especially after paying currency exchange fees (not to mention having to carry around cash). This is also painful for global business as well. If a firm wants to send a payment outside their home market they need to go through a bank. Which then takes their home market's currency, exchanges it for the accepted currency in the other market, and then lets the payment process. This process can take days, and this is the most painless method of transferring payments. Payments through cryptocurrencies break the barrier, and remove the middle man. Firms can easily find where they need to send the payment, select how ...

There are copious amounts of websites that offer ways to exchange cryptos. A few that will be discussed are Coinbase, Bitstamp, Poloniex, Bittrex, Gatehub, and Bitfinex. These exchanges never close; so you can buy/sell anytime/any day. I also added Circle, just cause. *refer to end for abbreviation Coinbase Simple and clean user interface Buy and Sell BTC/ETH/LTC with local currency Instant credit card purchases, bank accounts take 3-5 days high fees Bitstamp.net Exchange BTC, XRP, USD or EUR 98% of digital funds stored offline If you want to try trading cryptos: Poloniex Exchange/Lending 2.5x leverage Chatbox (trollbox) which can be entertaining Two Factore Id *Sometimes Poloniex has issues, and their customer service seems inexistent  Kraken Offers 5x leverage trading tools *seems sluggish at times Bittrex Offers 190+ cryptos US Based (if you are into that, deals with US regulations Gatehub.net Trade multiple currencies...

If Bitcoin's destination is the moon, it hasn't started its launch sequence. Cryptocurrencies are not in a bubble. There are just over 16 million bitcoins in circulation today with a market cap of just under $40 billion (Crypto Currency Market Capitalizations). The US currently has over $1.2 trillion dollars in circulation today (How Currency...). Bitcoin can be used in the global market, while USD is mainly used in the US. 16 million bitcoins to help assist a global economy. Supply is there, and demand is slowly ticking up. Retailers and Banks haven't decided to accept cryptocurrencies yet. As cryptocurrencies assimilate into the global economy, the value for Bitcoins will continue to all time highs. Image from coinbase *You do not need to buy a full bitcoin/alt-coin. Exchanges let you buy less that .01 of a crypto.