misteraven

I emailed him at the address on record. Let's see if he checks it and hops back on. If anyone knows him on social, ping him.

@Mercer looks like exodus is strictly desktop and no mobile wallet?

Ha! Have you seen how many ads there are to by physical bitcoins? they're like crappy chucky cheese tokens with the bitcoin symbol on them and sell for like $20. People are lost and they're scrambling to get down. Meanwhile some shady people out there looking to make some quick cash.

I think what @Dirty_habiT is referring to is that though our currency is no longer on the gold standard, that at one time allowed a person to go to a bank and turn over his currency for a defined amount of gold, the US government (and many others) hold gold as a reserve. It gets way complicated as to how its leveraged, but often when governments lend each other money, they often have terms that require it be paid back in gold bars. The read on this is that they don't actually trust fiat since they can inflate and deflate at will, which in turn affects the purchasing power. As such you can essentially dissolve debt. Though that's the read and not the claim, the gold reserve lends confidence to the currency.

Anyone know how to reach dude? Pass along a message to get him back on? The hunt for @lord_casek

Fuck bro, selling off all my LTC now... LOL! Seriously, great post. Not sure you got specific in a previous comment, but when did you start and how did you best gain your experience and knowledge? How closely do you follow news and if you do, how do you filter the real info from the noise?

I think its probably preference based upon how often you're trading. I think reputable exchanges are safe enough when you're literally trading / watching / trading. Likewise, if you're using them effectively you have stop / buy orders setup. I'd definitely be holding any long term positions in a wallet, but if you're trying to ride the pump on shit coins to make that over night money, no way to do that without putting the crypto in play.

Appreciate the response and clearly you're backing statements up with facts, so thanks for that. And you sort of point towards the complexity / inaccuracy of blanket statements or summarizing. Its a big issue with a lot of data points and even more points of influence that in total paint the picture and no doubt I'm over simplifying. That said, I still believe you're offering text book explanations that are hardly representative of the way the world is actually working today. People trust the USA because they're forced to do so. First with with our involvement in WW2 and later with the petro dollar. The USA having the global reserve currency puts us at an unfair advantage in the global economy and absolutely shelters us from many of the negative effects of the games played with money and economics. I'd argue that transparency in the USA is just about as bad as China. The Federal Reserve, being a privately held corporation has not been audited in decades. Few people have any idea what they are truly up to and especially not the American taxpayer. Fact that they dumped over $1 trillion into the stock market after the crash of 2008 shows that they can make up the rules as they go along... Expanding and contracting the monetary supply at their discretion in order to prop up their own ideas for the growth of our debt based economy. Having the full faith of your government to back your currency / wealth is only good until it isn't and running the types of deficits we do, even mainstream economists say not if, but when the country becomes insolvent. Its common knowledge that the government used social security like a ponzi scheme and that it's close to bankrupt. The Obama administration got a standing ovation at his second state of the union address when he proposed making a 401k's government backed so they could unlock billions more money that doesn't belong to them. Fact is pretty much everything we call out or try to police around the world, we've already been doing ourselves for longer. Calling out China for manipulating its currency to be more competitive on the global market... Shit, we invented that racket. Still stand behind my statement that the dollar isn't backed by anything much more significant than the trust of the people. Sure we can point to the gold holdings nobody has been allowed to see for decades, the GDP, the overall health or growth of the national economy, but considering they've been playing with those numbers for decades, fact is its all smoke and mirrors. So far every single administration has changed the rules for how unemployment is reported. After the ACA, they still sat there trying to say that unemployment was barely affected and hovered at something like 6%. Reminds me of when you get caught doing graffiti... They literally watched you catch a tag, see paint on your hands, see the can at your feet, yet you still look the cops in the eye and say it wasn't you.

Probably also why none of the clowns in Congress have the balls to audit the depository at Fort Knox and at the Federal Reserve. Lot of people suspect that gold is long gone. Would also make sense why when other countries ask for their gold deposits back, there's all kinds of excuses and delays. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicians-demand-to-see-gold-in-us-federal-reserve-a-864068.html https://nsnbc.me/2013/07/31/mystery-about-germany%C2%B4s-gold-in-the-us-solved/

I've never seen where you can actually pick the words in the phrase. Is that how Exodus actually works? Every other wallet I've heard of / seen assigns the words for you to save. If you're really paranoid, best bet is to not use the OS on your computer at all for this. You can take the computer offline, use an OS like Tails to bypass the hard drives OS, sync your data and be about as secure as anyone can be short of buying an entirely new computer and removing all communication hardware and software before booting it. More on Tails: https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html Awesome info man. Lot of stuff in this I wasn't aware of. That said, I'd say that the marketing power and success of institutions like AMEX will likely have XRP climb a lot in the short term. Keeping in mind that as crypto gets adopted, newbies (especially those that arent so tech savvy) will likely gravitate towards names / brands they know and already trust. I can definitely see XRP getting pumped for a while just off that before collapsing in on itself. Good post man.

LOL! @Mercer

I keep referring back to it because I see them as fundamentally linked. If you believe it’s built on the black of the nations economy then why would the Yen be worth shit, both in terms of its purchasing power within the country, it’s status on the global exchange and its value compared to the dollar? China is the number 2 economy in the world (many are now saying it’s the number 1). Their GDP is levels of magnitude beyond their import, the country carries no debt (in fact it owns a significant portion of the US debt). Yet nobody wants yen, they want dollars. I feel what you’re saying, I’m only saying that the text book classic definition of the value of fiat, it’s relationship to the economy and it’s purchasing power really don’t line up with real life considering the extent to which it’s all been manipulated. Same thing with the stock exchange (and very related). The big brokerage houses have real time access and skim tens of millions of dollars off trades using an algorithm that executes trades upon a fraction of debt, while the average joe puts in a trade based on a decision that has to be processed (and ironically the same brokerage houses often middle man those same trades for a fee). Plus with the power they have to buy, hold and sell, can do so at opportune moments that affect the value of the stock itself, further amplifying gains well beyond what the stock should be valued at according to the performance of the company that issued it. In both cases, it’s middle men manipulating the sitauation to their benefit. Crypto has no middle man and doesn’t function in real time. It has built in scarcity that can’t be changed. It has a predictable growth rate. It can’t be counterfeited (or at least not spent if it is). It’s fractional up to 21 decimal points and for some of the reasons above (mostly no middle men) is extremely cheap to transact. As a fiat, it’s only hurdle is confidence of the people to recognize it as a store of value. Pretty sure, we’re at that tipping point if not beyond it. That’s why government is freaking and putting out all the bad press.

Will definitely look into all this. Thanks for the knowledge.

You still seem to put a lot of faith in fiat. Technically crypto is actually fiat as well, but considering it has a defined scarcity and growth rate that can’t be changed, unlike the dollar, I’d have a tough time accepting why anyone would put more faith in it just because Uncle Sam promises to back it. There’s nearly zero transparency with the US Dollar and they’ve been playing games with it endlessly almost since inception, but especially with the founding of the federal reserve (which in itself is a crazy story). The fed literally lends money to the central banking system to in turn buy bonds just to keep from overtly lending the US government money since it’s run at a massive deficit and the big debt holders (China and Russia) aren’t buying. They can do shit like that because they can just move some decimal points around and create the money from thin air at their convenience. Meanwhile diluting the purchasing power of the dollar at an admitted rate of 4% a year (more like 7 - 8% according to shadow stats, which I don’t doubt). The government stopped reporting unfunded liabilities back during the Clinton administration because it was impossible to hide how deeply they’ve raided the pockets of the American tax payers. Meanwhile, we’ve doubled the national debt that they do acknowledge during the last administration. Sorry man, hard to see why anyone would trust that racket but be skeptical of the validity of crypto once you understand what it is, how it works and then piece together the impact it’s going to have on global economics. Not to say the establishment will fight it tooth and nail and pull out every trick in the book before realizing there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle and start embracing it fully. Best analogy I can think of is the world going back to flip phones after using iPhones simply because the US government says the old phones are reliable and thereby deciding to discredit smart phones up until making them illegal and believing every other country will follow suit.

Personally I’m using a Jaxx wallet which seems to be the same idea. Even has the string of words to recover. I have it synced from iPhone to desktop and believe that it stores the data on their servers in addition to your devices. Can’t see how you’d sync or recover otherwise. Jaxx also has shapeshift. As for the hardware wallet, yes if you lose it or break it you are fucked. As such, I usually see people suggest having two that are mirrored. One is used, the other gets stored. The stored one never touches a networked device so when you sync, you literally take your computer offline while doing so. I don’t own a hardware wallet but will probably buy two when I start seeing the need for it (like have huge money stashed). Will likely keep a paper copy as well. No idea about exodus but there are almost always transaction fees when sending crypto. As you probably know they’re tiny and easily hidden within the fluctuation of value. Sent my kid $100 of btc and he received $99.99.

Oh yeah, and VERGE?

Anyone buying TRON or RDD? Thoughts?

Oh yeah, the search works again. LOL

Damn, lot of OGs in here. Hadn't checked this thread in a minute but nice to see some old names. Maybe with some updated topics we got going, we'll start seeing some of you around a bit more?

@Mercer Damn dude, got a recipe for that slow cooked pork shoulder? Whats special about that slow cooker beyond one of those sub $12 crock pots? Congrats on all the rest. I remember that one time me, you and Julio had a screaming match at the 12oz studio... LOL! Still good times, but glad you got a handle on that. Seems like you're in a good place. Got to come visit me one of these days.

Ha! Not quite... You related it to the size of our GDP. Got nothing to do with that. Just some dudes behind closed doors working in cooperation with some massive banks and huge players to do what they think will make them the most money and keep the game going for longer.

That said, I was considering making a 12oz altcoin. Mainly I'd like to research and understand the deeper workings on the tech side, but who knows, if I can think of a feature and somehow build it, perhaps it'll get some attention. Anyone have an ideas of a shortcoming or feature we can exploit to differentiate a oontz coin? Anyhow try forking a coin or messing with actual blockchain? Also, I'm running a bit of a social experiment on the @12ozprophet instagram... Last batch of shirt we dropped sold out in minutes and I've had tons of people hitting me up since. I did some reprints to fill orders that slipped in when our server got borked at launch and wound up with some extras. Anyhow, I offered them up for no markup but you have to pay in crypto... Got dozens of emails asking how to set it up, dozens more begging to pay in Paypal (including a few offering a good bit over the price I've offered it at). So far only one kid actually paid in crypto amongst the dozens that have been sending emails asking how to set shit up. Anyhow, the very interesting (if not not quite conclusive) lesson is that so few people are up[ on this. Most have heard of it, but so few are actually buying / trading. You'd assume our audience is young and up on shit, good with social, savvy, etc... Trend setters perhaps. Yet very few seem to actually be up on this. I've heard a stat somewhere that about 2.5% of the USA is dealing in crypto and honestly I'm not believing that at all. We might be passed the days of sub $1k BTC, but this is still the early formative years of crypto so stake your claim!

Yeah man, I feel you. And thanks for the kind words regarding the site. I scooped some BTC at 10.4 which I pretty pleased with. I believe BTC is a long term play really. Obviously its the blue chip stock of crypto and I'll be surprised if in 10 years we wont see it up above $250k. I think the get rich quick opportunities are in the new coins that pop up at a fraction of a cent. Most will go nowhere, but then some will turn into NEO. Not offering financial advice, but personally I'm taking a sort of VC approach to it... Watch for the new alts, quickly research what team is behind it, if its a straight fork or has some new feature or plan and then spread some money around. Nothing big, but maybe $100 - $500 between about a dozen or so of them. I'll keep a close watch, pull my investment as soon as I see a good rise and let the profits run until I feel like dumping. Honestly I expect most to straight fail, but my guess is that there will always be one or two that will push from a fraction of a sent to maybe a few dollars or more. Its still the way early days of crypto and I seriously doubt we'll see opportunities like this once it stabilizes. Lot of people comparing it to .com and like that, there will always be amazing opportunity, but this wild west shit where you can become a millionaire in a short period of time... Cant see that lasting.

Just a helpful hint to those of you getting down and even some of you OGs... Dont use a freakin gmail to trade. Be smart and setup something like http://www.protonmail.com where your shit isn't going to be read by bots and reported to the alphabet agencies.

@LastBoyScout Oh yeah, the public ledger is the block chain. That's all it actually is for the most part.