Hundreds of millions? Nobody knows. Maybe it was a billion or two. Whatever, the amount of money put on credit cards (mostly by moisters) to buy cryptos a few months ago was unprecedented. Just like the losses. A Bitcoin today’s worth 70% less than last Christmas. This has been a lesson in bubbles. A classic. For the history books.
Fortunately those who read this pathetic blog got the advice early – as BTC was rocketing from $10,000 to almost double that. Get out, we said. Run. This thing will eat you. And here we are, with Bitcoin lurching its way back, eventually, to zero. The only people who have scored were those who invented a crypto then cashed out (like the fool who bought a $28 million condo last week in Toronto), day traders who knew enough to harness high-vol, plus the marketers, scam artists, charlatans and thieves who so densely populate the world of digital currencies.
Bubble behaviour doesn’t change much, even when people tell you ‘it’s different this time.’ But it never is. And never will be, until human nature alters.
The froth starts when prices jump, catching people’s attention. Smelling profits, others pile in, pushing prices rapidly skyward. The greatest buying binge almost always happens at the top – peak price and peak demand. The smart money exits as the dumbass money flows in. Values may fall sharply, at which point promoters scream ‘buying opportunity’ as they did on this blog last winter. But it’s a trap. Then it all disintegrates. People who bought high are terrified to sell on the way down, unable to admit or accept losses. So they’re crushed.
Bitcoin is done. Kaput. So is Ethereum, Tether, Ripple and all the other kiddie cryptos which people have been mining in their bedrooms and selling on unregulated, undisciplined, unsecure, immature and unstable exchanges. The entire notion of digital currency is being refuted and proven impractical. There can be no currencies without a regulator to ensure the medium of exchange is reliable, non-volatile and backed with something that actually exists – like a central bank and governments possessing the power to tax. Those who thought BTC was cool because it was cowboy, alt and stuck a finger in the eye of The Man just learned something fundamental. The system works. It protects you. Stray outside the wire and risk having your legs blown off.
Still doubt it? Don’t.
Cryptos will never be money, says the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) in a new report. They are inherently unstable, suck off enough electricity to be an environmental disaster and are subject to massive fraud and manipulation. The decentralized nature of the blockchain technology behind cryptos is not a strength, but a fundamental weakness. Plus, it’s all so unwieldy that if BTC ever replaced the existing payments system, the entire Internet would grind to a halt.
There’s more. The regulators – as forecast here last year – are up BTC’s butt and never coming out. Last year’s bubble behaviour was caused not only by investor panic, greed and FOMO, but also systemic fraud and criminal trading activity. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is now squishing new coin offerings and investigating the players who pushed Bitcoin from a few bucks to $20,000, sucking in those Mills who used credit card bills to get in. (The credit card companies have all now banned digital coin purchases.)
A study by US academics found a concentrated campaign of price manipulation accounted for at least half of the spectacular Bitcoin advance last year – when advocates on this blog said the crypto would hit $100,000 or beyond. At the heart of that scam was an exchange called Bitfinex, operating out of the Caribbean and Asia. Meanwhile another crypto exchange – Coinrail in South Korea, lost about $40 million in digital currency the other day when hackers walked off with it. This follows on the stellar example of Mt Gox, an exchange which was raided for $480 million in 2014, and Coincheck, which had $400 million stolen a few months ago.
Are you getting the point? Crypto currencies are not a step forward. They’re a giant leap backwards – at least so long as they’re unregulated monetary outliers backed by duct tape and faerie poop. If you still own some, bail.
Digital money will come. As I wrote here a few weeks ago, the revolution is almost complete now. The folding stuff is rare. Banks deal in credit, not cash. Soon everyone will buy everything with their phone. But it will be central banks backing cyptocurrencies, which will be regulated, controlled, supported by economies and stabilized through interest rates and careful money supply. Yup, just like now.
So suck it up, kids. We got this one.
140 comments ↓
Guess I’ll put this article from howmuch from the other day up for another run…
M44BC
The Speed of Crypto Hacks is Picking Up: This Month Alone Thieves Stole $71.5M
https://howmuch.net/articles/biggest-crypto-hacks-scams
Hey Flop and people who are interested in RE sales histories,
So I’m changing the subject from cryptos to RE, but check out http://www.ovlix.com. Enter your city first, then type in address of the property that you want sales history. Lets hope that Realturd.ca® doesn’t shut this down. Maybe we need to create a legal defense fund for these types of websites.
Fighting insane UN densifcation mandate helping turn us into rats in a cage. City, medical services, transit all are above capacity yet people are being brought here, just walk on in.
Have fun waiting in line the for life saving healthcare you’ve been paying for your whole life:
https://www.blogto.com/city/2018/06/yonge-and-eglinton-residents-dont-want-any-more-condos/
Money! Bitcoin! I mean, first!
Modern day high-tech pyramid scheme is what it sounds like to me.
yeah bitcoin is a shit show. i can’t care.
Great chart analysis there.
I see market manipulation every week. Things move contrary to fundamentals. Just on Friday, OPEC agreed to increase oil output so an increase in supply should have dropped oil’s price. Instead the price of oil went up.
Gold dropped $30 bucks in a day two weeks ago. I read someone sold 260,000 contracts worth $34 billion in one day. (Zero Hedge)
Bitcoin losses at credit card interest rates? Expensive education for the kids. I feel bad for them (not bad enough to write a cheque, though.)
There is no beating the banks and gov’t when they come after their piece of the action.
The crypto crack heads are just like talking to gold bugs and doomsday preppers. Lose baby lose!
to zero?
this will be worse than your real estate call a decade ago
is that even possible?
….(like the fool who bought a $28 million condo last week in Toronto)…. – GT
——————————————————————-
Is there any possibility this is a transaction on a paper for just tax evasion or money laundering ? Is this a numbered company buying this or a real-person ?
After all, what is unique about this condo, I’m really wondering, there must be a reason. May be it is gold plated from floor to ceiling valued about at 27.5 million ?
Great post Garth. Bitfinex created Tethers, which are supposed to be backed 1:1 with USD. Bitfinex then started printing Tethers out of thin air and used them to bid up Bitcoin. Illegal wash trading and FOMO also helped fuel the bubble. Biggest scam in the history of the world and Cryptos still have a market cap of over $250 billion USD.
Need a whole lot of new suckers to keep this ship from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Who are the new suckers going to be?
Canada Real Estate Bubble Will POP! Sales Drop 16%, Mortgage Rates Rise, RECORD HIGH Debt!
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/canada-real-estate-bubble-will-pop-sales-drop-16-mortgage-rates-rise-record-high-debt/
#2 Comic Book Guy in YVR on 06.24.18 at 5:33 pm
Hey Flop and people who are interested in RE sales histories,
So I’m changing the subject from cryptos to RE, but check out http://www.ovlix.com. Enter your city first, then type in address of the property that you want sales history. Lets hope that Realturd.ca® doesn’t shut this down. Maybe we need to create a legal defense fund for these types of websites.
////////////////
Hey Comic,yeah P.P dissed me and put that site up the other day.
I don’t see no sales history though,maybe I have to log in?
My legal defense for when they try to shut me and my site down is that I’m an idiot from Tasmania…
M44BC
like my 97 year old grandpa said to me the other day while chewing Copenhagen snuff and not spitting anything out… kid get off the internet and get some real work done
I knew that digital coins were rubbish when I saw with my own eyes bitcoin being mined by kids in the top flat of my son’s appt building in Hanoi. You can’t make this stuff up.
The problem is not only with crypto currencies but virtually all mainstream currencies. QE in the US and Europe is just counterfeiting on a massive scale. In Canada our government has a neat variation by creating 100’s of billions of mortgages digitally. The whole world it seems has given up on good old fashioned work. I am 62 and have never seen so many bubbles one after another. Human nature is such that we all feel entitled to a luxury lifestyle by flipping things to each other. At some point the whole system will be reset by a massive depression. Only then will people and governments get off their butts and back to productive work if they can only remember how.
Itty Bitty Coin?
There is no truth to the rumor that the name will be changed to Itty Bitty Coin. Well not yet anyhow.
Yep, Garth called this one…
What’s gonna happen to dinosaurs like me without a cell phone? Doh …
Called the top of bitcoin some time ago. Interesting thing is I got that one right.
Problem was you can’t make money on bitcoin that easily even if you can call the top, because you can’t sell it. Buying is easy. Selling? Check your exchange. Most will say, when you want to sell, that they don’t have that capability yet.
I learned a long time ago that if you want to enjoy your life you have to control your finances.
I mean completely.
You can’t have a bank demanding mortgage payments.
You can’t have a parent letting you access trust funds in exchange for ass kissing. You have to control the flow.
Best way to do that is not to work for the man, but rather be the man.
Demand dividends from your a$$hole CEOs (who btw are your employees if you own shares). Demand that those who work for your companies, work their little butts off, to benefit you, the shareholder, who is the only person who matters.
Demand. That is what you want to do. These are my shares, my company, go make me money, minions and don’t talk back.
CEO? Earn that title moron. Make my shares worth something. I expect results.
Be the man. Don’t work for the man.
Nuff said
Yeah I have always been skeptical here. One could argue that they could be a store of value regardless if they serve as a currency or not. In this case it’s simply supply and demand dynamics determining price. I just think there are better places to put $.
Last Christmas during the seasonal parties I was spreading this exact message…maybe not quite so eloquently. I wasn’t the most popular guy there judging by the elbows I received from my girlfriend. I was told I “didn’t get it” by the faithful. So true. I didn’t get it. But lots of people I know did get it. Good and hard. You can’t fix stupid but you can sell them the electricity to manufacture it. That’s why I own Fortis, Emera and Atco. Keep on mining you cyrpto dreamers!
Digital Currencies and Money and Money as Credit
As Garth points out, the folding kind of money is rare now.
We HAVE a digital currency. It’s called the dollar.
And it turns out that yes, basically all money is credit. Even paper money represents a sort of debt payable in goods and services. No particular person or even the Canadian government or the Bank of Canada really owes you anything when you have a $20 in your hand. But the economy as a whole sort of owes you $20 worth of goods and services which you may collect anytime. It is the darnest thing.
The only thing the Bank of Canada has to do to “back” the Canadian dollar is control inflation so that the amount of goods and services represented by a $20 does not change over a short holding period. For longer holding periods yes inflation erodes, but it is not much of a problem since you can usually earn interest to offset inflation. And maybe the Bank of Canada has a second job of not letting the dollar erode too much in terms of a U.S. dollar.
Bitcoin BTC 6,154.8 $105.77B $4.53B -1.10%
Bitcoin has reached its bottom so why would you say that Bitcoin will reach to Zero? Bitcoin will be at US$1,000,000 by Q4 2019. There are only so many bitcoins and bitcoin mines, just like real estate in the Toronto area. Prices can only go up because of demand.
Alex Jones, Ezra Levant and Kevin Johnson of the Anti-Islamic Foundation have all concurred that Bitcoin is the future of monetary policy. The USD is going to collapse and the CAD will go with it. Bitcoin is useful for those under oppressive regimes to purchase real estate in Canada.
Bitcoin is here to stay.
Credit Card Companies
As for buying stuff on “credit cards”. Visa and the like are as much or more “payment cards” as “credit” cards. Much and probably most of the dollars “charged” on credit cards are paid off monthly to avoid interest charges.
I have long considered VISA and MasterCard to be two unregulated monopolies. For consumers they are a duopoly. For most merchants they are a total monopoly. Most retailers have no real choice but to accept both Visa and MasterCard and pay the relatively fat merchant discount fees.
These credit card companies also do things like add 2.5% to your U.S. dollar purchases, just because they can get away with it.
Visa and MasterCard are basically electronic toll booths. They ought to be regulated as to their fees.
It’s a bit complicated because there are the bank credit card issuers that do compete with other and then the Visa and MasterCard entities at the top of the food chain that don’t take any credit risk and simply operate monopolistic electronic toll booths.
Well Bitcoin is about to do its run up again so i would get on that. This is not financial advice.
Im so glad you mentioned the electricity component. Even IF BTC could in theory do what the pushers say, I was shocked at the consumption rates. That alone should have told any potential investors that this was completely unsustainable.
And as much as I hate the banks/politicians, its the system that’s in place and that ain’t changing anytime soon.
Kudos if you got in when it was dirt cheap, but expecting a crypto to set you up is foolish IMO.
Besides all the dirty money is in Canadian real estate, that never goes down.
Actually, Bitcoin has been a huge lesson for me.
You see, some guys I hung out with first mentioned Bitcoin Miner to me. This was 2012, 2013 time-frame.
It was interesting – things like the “wallet.dat” being unprotected and thus could be read by some really interesting code (And, thus, stealing the contents) to watching the fall of Mt. Gox in real-time. Not sure if any of these guys mined-and-kept, or what, but the ones I know about did well in high-tech anyway.
Ok, why was it interesting? The eventual hype. The millions – no – billions made off of it by some people, while many lost their shirt. And, probably, their underwear.
Sure, I wish I had mined Bitcoin, had a look at the code, and thought, “so what”. I’m glad that I didn’t. With my record keeping, the chances of me keeping the credentials would have been about zero, and I would have been kicking myself last autumn… So, glad I didn’t mine Bitcoin back in the day.
(but, wished I had, and held onto the credentials, then sold last fall, but that’s hindsight… the balanced and diversified portfolio has done its’ work, so Bitcoin was not needed to achieve that)
Woohooo… I just bought another presale condo investment today!!!!
@#19 Zapstrap
“What’s gonna happen to dinosaurs like me without a cell phone? ‘
++++
You wont walk into traffic while texting?
Oh Canada – Our bought and sold out land (documentary)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbACCGf6q-c
@#24 Bitcoin Investor who owns Lambos in Monaco
“Bitcoin will be at US$1,000,000 by Q4 2019. ”
+++++++
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHA
Your name
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Your message
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thanks for the laugh Lambo “owner” who lives in “Monaco”.
Just curious, what enticed you to lower yourself and read this lowly blog?
Boredom?
And then to grace us with your wise words…..we’re not worthy.
You will check in with us peasants Dec. 2019 when Bitcoin reaches US $1,000,000…..yes?
In today’s news:
CENTRAL banks say DECENTRALIZATION is bad!
Come on, Garth, do you really want to be this guy – bearish about the Internet in 1995?
http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306
The Internet had a Dot Com bubble. Yet I am sitting in underpants on my couch writing this comment to you.
As a money guy, you should have the attitude to either educate yourself on the topic, or admit ignorance.
Instead, you chose to trust a report from BIS…
It’s like asking the paper press and post offices in 1995 if they think the Internet will be a thing.
#24 Lambo guy – A young couple who lives there just got married, and the elite from Europe attended so who was it? He also owned a Lambo.
Bitcoin? Classic pump and dump. Black ops. Who else has that kind of technical capacity?
Bitcoin exchanges “hacked” $$$ went somewhere.
Got crushed on IOTA.. My moister kid was going all in on it. Gave him 1000 bucks. To try.
Forex 400 to 1 when you talk and are friends with aliens. Amazing.
Ovlix – great site. Integrates the price drop on the picture on any listing. The way it should be.
Still just using mostly old fashioned cash here. I try to avoid other payment methods generally. The banks controlling access to all of my spending power by creating a system in which cash is “no longer needed” terrifies me.
Pink Lemonade Stand in Vancouver
Well,been seeing baby signs of the supposed condo slowdown ,and these guys with their latest reduction have now qualified to get a permit for a Pink Lemonade Stand out the front of their complex.
Picked up for 480k in late 2016 ,the building is 106 years old and so some parts would have a nice patina to it now.It was supposedly converted from a warehouse to loft/condos in 1997.
So it’s not all shiny and new but let’s see how they do against the assessment of 482 and they have to get them up a fraction to be made whole.
Still don’t know what happened to the condo on Cambie that I put up the other day and as nice as it is to have access to recent sales history,the sites that I have seen do it only update when b.c assessment has done so ,and so in that regard it still is the sales bible.
What I really need is to find a realtor with a conscience to help me report in real time.
As a construction worker,I will lose my job or have reduced work ,at the very least ,if any major downturn happens ,but that won’t stop me from doing these reports and all I can do is try and stay out of harms way.
I know some of the developers that I work for would turn their back on me if they knew I was helping you guys.
I don’t know much,but probably just enough to be dangerous…
M44BC
410 1216 Homer Street, Vancouver paid 480 December 2016 ass 482. Asking 500k
410 1216 Homer Street, Vancouver paid 480k Dec 2016 ass 482
May 28:$537,000
Jun 22: $500,000
Change: – 37000.00 -7%
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/1216-homer-street/410
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Feel free to make a donation.
Flop For Fox Fund…
http://www.terryfox.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/
#2 . Good. Also check out, Point2 Home Support. Lots of declines, mostly further out from Vancouver city but some also there.
Until I buy in. Once I buy, then things crash. Buying BTC at $27,000 CAD last year was not such a great idea. Glad I only dropped a few hundred bucks to try it.
The experience did teach me what credit card companies restrict you and which ones don’t. Sorry Capital One. I have 4 other cards active. So, I ditched you after you cancelled my card through a so called security breach which needed you to send me a new card, number etc, which took a whole month, when in reality you didn’t want me buying crypto. Even though you saved me a 70% write down on my purchases I learned who not to deal with.
If you allow me credit I should be able to spend it how I like.
Also, I have not bought a house yet, but was thinking so soon.
RE won’t crash until the day after I buy in.
Garth, you have your buy/sell recommendations mixed up.
You buy when everyone is running out and it feels like the lights are going to go out and you sell when grandpa who does not know anything about a computer starts talking about bitcoin.
Maybe what you meant is sell now and re-purchase once it touches a few more legs down near zero. That would be pretty good, but like peaks, absolute bottoms are hard to call, so you might not get it perfect but selling or buying just before those changes is where the money is made.
Anyone in RE should have already sold off, just like RE will become a great buy again in Canada in the year 2022/23.
Cryptos are certainly the most bizarre of all bubbles. How anyone thought that a bunch of hard to solve formulas could be used as a freely floating unit of currency is beyond me.
Call me old fashioned but gold seems like a better bet. Sure, it’s just another commodity now, but at least it has intrinsic value so you can always trade it for something. You can put it in your pocket and walk it down to the pawn shop. They’ll do some tests and give you cash. Maybe not what you paid, but something.
Cryptos are also a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. Visa already does the online purchasing function. So do Paypal, Mastercard, online banking, etc. So the only purpose of Cryptos was to create a speculative vehicle. It’s not a means of exchange. You can’t have a means of exchange that fluctuates in value and is so easy to steal like that. Cash is bad enough due to inflation, cryptos are totally useless.
The block chain technology behind it may have some uses, indeed it may be useful for cash transactions, but the idea that it is a currency in and of itself is bizarre. Not everything that is kept scarce is valuable. See Beenie Babies for an example.
For something to be worth money it has to be scarce naturally. That is why gold still has value. There is a limited supply, and girls like to wear it. Therefore it will always be worth something. But cryptos are not scarce. Sure, maybe there will only ever be so many Bitcoins, but there can be a bazzillion other cryptos. The supply is unlimited. Things with unlimited supply aren’t worth dirt. Even dirt has a limited supply.
The only way a crypto could actually be worth something is if there is a monopoly controlled by a government regulated entity that carefully limits supply and backs it with something somewhat tangible, like gold or debt written against reliable assets like government bonds. Oh wait that’s cash. It doesn’t matter that much of the cash we use today is just electronic entries in an accounting system, it is backed by something, so long as they don’t print too much of it.
The real estate call made a decade ago was based on economic logic, not central bank insanity.
Just like the bitcoin bubble that was derailed after the Davos meet early in the year where I warned everyone on here that the mission was to smash crypto in a coordinated effort and that is exactly what they did and continue to do.
Remember this – Vancouver real estate was a huge benefactor from bitcoin rising. A lot of people may have forgot how closely tied this is and with btc in the gutter that is just another head wind for Vancouver real estate.
Real estate in Canada could not have anymore chips stacked against it at this point. The only thing going for it right now is Doug Ford who can’t stop the coming recession and continue in house price collapse across the country.
I agree 100% on BTC and it will go to zero in much the same fashion Napster disappeared only to be replaced by the regulated iTunes and Spotify… Blockchain isn’t going anywhere. As I type this, there is a token that is set to disrupt SWIFT and free up Trillions in liquidity parked in Nostro and Vostra accounts (Garth knows what SWIFT is) The company behind the tech (Ripple) are working WITH regulators and banks to revolutionize the system from within (as Garth describes) They have a very bright executive team and are highly focused on crypto utility (not speculation) Their preferred token XRP will be the Phoenix to arise from the crypto ashes when it all goes down as predicted on the cover of The Economist 30 years ago. Google it. Just like the dotcom bubble, the carnage will be epic but from the dotcom ashes, a few companies emerged… Google, Apple etc. Ripple will be the next household name and XRP will be the digital asset of choice as it is the only one that is engineered to settle cross-border transactions in real time for fractions of a cent where SWIFT took 5 days with exorbitant fees and an error rate north of acceptable. Imagine snail mail with its fees and errors vs email. Who wouldn’t want that?
#38 Goldie
The banks controlling access to all of my spending power by creating a system in which cash is “no longer needed” terrifies me.
————————————
Yeah, me too Goldie. For anyone younger than 45 it’s already a practical reality. Anyone between 45 and 60 will to have to get used to the idea soon, if they haven’t already. Myself, I might be out of here before that sad day comes. Cash is beautiful.
” Remember this – Vancouver real estate was a huge benefactor from bitcoin rising.”
Really? I’ve heard a lot of bizarre-ass s**t over the past few years, often coming from the pens of Realtors and their landlord family buddies trying to maintain the allusion of rising prices when prices peaked in 2013. But you’ve gotta be the first person to claim that Bitcoin had anything to do with the levitated prices in YVR.
Please do elaborate further, if you actually believe such.
Once upon a time, there was a fairly safe way to make money on the bitcoin.
Let me explain:
I heard about bitcoin from my three colleagues (software developers) during lunchtime in corporate cafeteria long, long time ago (Nov. or Dec. 2013). They where talking about how many graphic cards they bought to mine some strange thing called bitcoin and how electricity is so expensive.
I did not understand a word they where saying so I asked them to explain what was going on.
I listened carefully while they were explaining this new technology which is going to change the world. They answered carefully all my questions and their replies did not make much sense to me. Oh Boy, they were so excited.
Being a soft spoken Canadian of East European descent, I told them that they are dumb turkeys and that bitcoin was probably invented by NVIDIA or AMD (graphic card vendors) to skim off suckers.
They laughed me off by saying that I am an old dinosaur incapable of understanding new stuff.
To make a long story short I loaded on NVIDIA (2% of my portfolio) when it was about $15.50 few days after this conversation. As NVIDIA took off to the sky I trimmed it few times to 5% of my portfolio. It turned out to be my best investment ever.
Money verse real stuff
#17 Vanron on 06.24.18 at 6:04 pm said:
In Canada our government has a neat variation by creating 100’s of billions of mortgages digitally. The whole world it seems has given up on good old fashioned work. I am 62 and have never seen so many bubbles one after another. Human nature is such that we all feel entitled to a luxury lifestyle by flipping things to each other.
***************************
Granted all that debt may be a problem. But consider that one man’s debt is always someone else’s wealth. (Yes, even with fractional reserve banking). If enough debt is not repaid banks(and their share owners) and eventually in theory even depositors will lose. (But the idea of depositors being at risk is pretty much only theoretical, extremely unlikely to happen in Canada.)
Consider too that every physical house and every car and every good and service has always been fully paid for by someone on earth at the instant of its creation. For houses the land has been developed, the concrete produced and transported and poured. The trees grown and sawn up and assembled. Somebody some place has expended the time and energy and used machines (that someone previously expended time and energy to produce) to produce that house. It is real. THIS generation of people (as a population) has built that house.
The Canadian government can borrow from some Canadians or foreigners and require future Canadian tax payers to pay that back. But for the population of earth as a whole, it is impossible to have future generations pay for things.
Future generations as a population DO however inherit the existing stock of everything. The current population cannot take it with them. Canadian kids born today will grow up to be taxpayers and pay government debts to other Canadians and to foreigners. But they also collectively inherit Canada and basically everything in it. They are getting a WONDERFUL deal overall.
The existence of debt does not make anything you see in the real world fake. In fact credit greatly facilitates production. Credit is the grease of the economy. Some people will drown in debt. But a world without debt and credit would be a primitive place with a far lower quatum of real goods and services and houses and well everything.
This post overreaches. Bitcoin is fatally flawed, but distributed ledgers will be one of several technologies that eats the world over the coming decades. As always, do your own research.
Two parts to this tale. I was looking at real estate in Quebec where business is good, but they cannot find employees. I am not fond about townhouses, but this one was rare in structure selling for $169,900 so looked at the pictures, and it was a gem with not a dime to be spent on it. It even had a wood burning fireplace with the maintenance fee at $125 per month. The mayor of this city near Montreal took a bus there to hoop some migrants from all over the world with high qualifications, and brought them back for a tour of his city. The bus stopped at a fine hotel, and they had lunch in a rented space with the best of everything while he gave a speech. After the lunch all moved into another room where employers were sitting to interview and make job offers. There are contracts that cannot be filled because of no employees at many of the companies. One company has a huge contract from the USA, and will pay $18.00 per hour for unskilled labour, and much more for supervisors, and management – go figure.
Pink Lemonade Stand in Vancouver
After showing that detached was going down 6-9 months before most people cottoned on to what was happening,the kids have challenged me to become relevant again and show the start of the cool off in Condo World.
These guys just chopped the best 70k off and just like the last guys would have to get the buyer up a touch to be made whole after expenses.
They paid 532 in February 2018,so it was a short turnaround and now they are appear to be in a rush to get out.
The rush to the exits could be on,most people think everyone will be fine.
I dunno Howe…
M44BC
307 – 1010 Howe Street paid 532 February 2018 ass479
Now asking 549k
2018-06-08 : $618,000
2018-06-22 : $549,000
Change: 69,000 -11%
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/1010-howe-street/307
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Feel free to make a donation.
Flop For Fox Fund…
http://www.terryfox.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/
The war on cash is real. The governments want control over your info and money. Use cash and send a message. Keep cash alive!
@#36 Smoking Man
Are the aliens you talk to going to pay for Trump’s Space Force?
Why is Donald Trump not being blamed for the crypto crash? If Trump walked on water the media would say the guy can’t swim.
Hundreds of millions? Nobody knows. Maybe it was a billion or two. Whatever, the amount of money put on credit cards (mostly by moisters) to buy cryptos a few months ago was unprecedented
Bitcoin Guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQegMA_kY9Y
May: -6.40%
Up:1 Down:46
Overall $ Change: -4333099.00 Average Change Amount:-92193.60
June: -7.21%
Up:2 Down:27
Overall $ Change: -4348874.00 Average Change Amount:-149961.17
Last year it was half this amount around 2-3%
1btc = $8200 cad. Still worth something!
Listen to Kyle Bass, founder of Hayman Capital on CNCBC: tariffs are simply about national security.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-24/trump-drops-new-bomb-trade-war-plans-restrict-china-investment-us-firms
#36 Smoking Man on 06.24.18 at 7:25 pm
Got crushed on IOTA.. My moister kid was going all in on it. Gave him 1000 bucks. To try.
—————————————
IOTA is a fascinating technology. No blockchain, no mining, no transaction fees and a network that gets faster as it scales. Partnerships with some of the biggest global companies (VW, Fujitsu, Bosch, etc) It is a very strong contender to be the backbone of the Machine Economy.
The Machine Economy: Billions of internet connected people, cars, containers, sensors, charging stations, devices, autonomously executing billions of micro (even sub-penny) transactions.
It is inevitable and there is No Way the legacy financial system can support this kind of market.
Price of IOTA could go to 0 or to the moon, but right now it moves in lockstep with Bitcoin, and will take time to decouple as the market becomes more informed. Blog posts like this are unhelpful.
We get it Garth, Caveat Emptor, but leave tech to the Moisters. We got this one.
Transacting your house in bitcoin makes a lot of sense on the money laundering front.
David Eby and crew are well aware.
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-condo-bitcoin-2018
If crypto goes down, so does your Vancouver house.
Money laundering pays.
He has been very active today threatening everyone in the world like a tyrant. He even called for immediate deportation of all illegals because they are invaders and must be sent back from where they came from. It gets better, as stated to hell with the court cases and the judges. There is so much more, as am beginning to believe he might be taking something to fuel his anger. The Congress must activate Article 12 of their Constitution to save America, and the world.
On the day gold peaked a few years back, people were lined up outside the door of VBCE in Vancouver and around the corner. Hundreds of them.
#2 Comic Book Guy in YVR on 06.24.18 at 5:33 pm
Hey Flop and people who are interested in RE sales histories,
So I’m changing the subject from cryptos to RE, but check out http://www.ovlix.com. Enter your city first, then type in address of the property that you want sales history. Lets hope that Realturd.ca® doesn’t shut this down. Maybe we need to create a legal defense fund for these types of websites.
==============
The site looks good but ;
1- The site is not giving the full-history (cross referenced a random place )
2- Another random place, the sale history indicates changes of same amount as +/- applied many times with +1 day difference.
In conclusion, The sales history reporting has some issues on that website.
#57 Okanagan Price Drops Intensifying on 06.24.18 at 9:01 pm
May: -6.40%
Up:1 Down:46
Overall $ Change: -4333099.00 Average Change Amount:-92193.60
June: -7.21%
Up:2 Down:27
Overall $ Change: -4348874.00 Average Change Amount:-149961.17
Last year it was half this amount around 2-3%
…………….
I would love to know where you got those numbers.
This is a complex Constitution, but those in USA are whispering insane and barking mad. There are two ways of removing the President, and most refer to the 25th amendment, article 4.
Gold has been worthless for a decade now
I feel sorry for those who have gold in their portfolio
Not really
People mortgaged their houses to buy Nortel and got squished. People mortgaged their houses to buy bitcoin and are getting squished. There must be a rare gene that leads people to do this.
Forget BTC
Tech jobs is where the money is at!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2018/06/16/where-the-highest-paying-it-jobs-are-in-2018/#26bf62bc7e6f
All my tech friends have job security and recruiters call them all day long!
Buying bit coin with credit card Ha Ha well no love lost for that bunch. 29% interest on cards. Karma???
The government doesn’t like cash because it’s hard to tax, period.
They will get rid of it as soon as they can.
With governments in Canada so heavily indebted and economic prospects diminishing it is now all about taxes.
Their job is to find out how much you owe and then make you pay.
Even if they have to kill you to get their money.
#43 Nonplused That is why gold still has value. There is a limited supply, and girls like to wear it.
—————
Gold has value cause girls like to wear it.
Now that makes sense.
Bitcoin was doomed at the start by scalability issues. Stepping back and running a simple scenario on elevating it to a world currency would quickly demonstrate its inability to handle more than a few transactions per second, all while using enough electricity to power Denmark.
Good god, what a sh#thole Toronto is. Sports teams choking, and this weekend you almost need a calculator to keep up with how many brutal, senseless murders have happened in just the last 48 hours. A record-setting year for violence.
What is wrong with you people?
An entire suburbanized wasteland circling the drain.
Your real estate bubble collapse will follow shortly, and it will be even more brutal than your violent, fifth-rate population of thugs.
#72 Reality is stark on 06.24.18 at 10:31 pm
-The simple “reality” is that any advanced country needs to have the ability to enforce its tax laws, otherwise no one will pay.
This is nothing new.
Remember Capone got taken down for tax evasion in the US. And its IRS agents who walk around with pistols, not CRA agents.
MF
Lots of markets/assets get into bubble territory, that’s no reason to be negative on bitcoin. Your article has really dated you, centralized systems have served you and your generation well so I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’m sure you know your history, most fiat currencies end up the garbage hear and I’m sure we will see many more fail even with there wonderful regulators. The next generation has embraced crypto and it will continue to develop. Will it be a good investment? Who knows but blockchain is likely here to stay. I read the BIS report, nothing new in it and loved how it touted the almighty central banks. Like your articles but I needed to stick up for BTC. Yes I own some, maybe roughly 10x on my money and now playing with house money. Keeps me interested in the space. I retired at 36 a few years ago but not because of crypto, just plain old etf’s and frugality.
So…if Bitcoin goes to zero does that mean the end of investigating the hackers? After all, they would have stolen…nothing!
“#68 Leo Trollstoy on 06.24.18 at 10:21 pm
Gold has been worthless for a decade now”
Gold = ~$1000 CAD 10 years ago. Today, ~$1684. Beat a lot of asset classes including cash, emerging markets, and the TSX.
So let’s stick to facts here.
They just flipped up an article on the net which was a long read about complex tax structures both in Canada and elsewhere. It read like a conspiracy that involved several known people and tax evasion. Well at least they outed Mr. Dress Up, and the Liberal Party. I never knew that one of the top tax experts in Canada has an association with the Dalhousie University in Halifax because that is one fine University for parents to recommend to their children.
If Trump walked on water the media would say the guy can’t swim.
What’s with you Trumpies and this line? What media mind started this ridiculous comment – I read it everywhere. Trump already walks on water to you people!
He’s an absolute moron. a brute. he couldn’t tell the truth if Ivanka’s life depended on it. How do you support this trash? he spews easily verifiable lies, and you think he’s being targeted?
Trump providing a well thought out and reasoned position on anything would be like hearing a dog quacking like a duck – that would be amazing.
Can we please get real? One year ago to the day, Bitcoin was at $2,560. Today it is over $6,000. That is a 140% increase. This year to year increase has been accelerating significantly. Stop the short term thinking. Get real.
#66 FOUR FINGERS WATSON on 06.24.18 at 9:54 pm
#57 Okanagan Price Drops Intensifying on 06.24.18 at 9:01 pm
May: -6.40%Up:1 Down:46Overall $ Change: -4333099.00 Average Change Amount:-92193.60
June: -7.21%Up:2 Down:27Overall $ Change: -4348874.00 Average Change Amount:-149961.17
Last year it was half this amount around 2-3%
—————————————————-
I would love to know where you got those numbers.
———————————————————
Ditto!! SOREB stats or?
Re Damifino et al .
On several occasions now I tried to pay cash for a service and found out or been told that I needed a credit card as they didn’t take cash . I’m going to start refusing to pay on my card and produce only cash . When they can’t deal with that , “ eets not mi problema “ . Credit card rebellion time …..
The newest ICO is the “HELLO KITTY” coin. This is a real world exchange where Kitty’s adventures solve mysteries hidden inside J Pop dance moves. Her coins are perpetually funded by mining for J Pop songs. Here’s where the money is made…..the dance choeography is secret code that pays off in Kitty Coins when you solve the secret equation. I’m telling ya…..this is a winner….subscribe now for that new TO condo…..you can’t lose.
#66 FOUR FINGERS WATSON on 06.24.18 at 9:54 pm
#57 Okanagan Price Drops Intensifying on 06.24.18 at 9:01 pm
May: -6.40%
Up:1 Down:46
Overall $ Change: -4333099.00 Average Change Amount:-92193.60
June: -7.21%
Up:2 Down:27
Overall $ Change: -4348874.00 Average Change Amount:-149961.17
Last year it was half this amount around 2-3%
…………….
I would love to know where you got those numbers.
————————————————————-
https://www.myrealtycheck.ca/
Click Kelowna at the top
Good. At least the Trudeau government is doing a few things right.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/06/24/new-trust-fund-rules-meant-to-crack-down-on-tax-evasion.html
The federal government has introduced sweeping reporting rules for private trust funds, which have been abused for decades by some wealthy Canadians to hide money from tax collectors.
“It is more important than ever everyone is properly reporting to the CRA. The chances of getting caught for failing to do so are going up substantially,” wrote Edmonton tax lawyers MaryAnne Loney and Mike Harris in a blog post last month.
I agree 100%. BTC and the other cryptos are useless trash. The decentralized nature is what is their main downfall, ironically.
Central bankers are definitely not perfect. They make tons of mistakes and create failed policy, but for now its the best option we have.
#77 Nick on 06.25.18 at 12:17 am
FIAT gets a bad rap, and its almost always be people who stand to gain from alternative investments like gold, RE, crypos, etc.
The simple reality is that FIAT currencies have made the economic system smoother with less panics than the alternative gold based system. This is with 70’s hyperinflation and the 2008 crisis. Again, not a perfect system, but the best we have.
MF
“The folding stuff is rare. Banks deal in credit, not cash. ”
– Garth
——————————————————————–
So, the other day, I’m visiting the old man at the hospital, and I have to park in one of those super-high priced automated, attendant-less parking lots.
When I go to leave, and try paying, the machine flashes a message: “Credit Card Rejected”.
Huh? Why?
I try again. Same shit.
I try another card. Same shit.
I try my wife’s card. Same shit.
I try another one of my wife’s card. Same shit.
Unfortunately, we spent the grand total of $40 cash we had between us earlier in the day, treating our daughter and fiancee to a gnarly feed at 5 Guys. So, we have zero cash.
Stuck in an auto-pay hospital parking lot on Sunday evening. Nice.
Called the parking office. Called security. Crickets.
What to do? Is this how the modern world of the automated cashless society looks?
So, I figured, EFF ‘EM ALL, and drove my obnoxiously big ass gas-pig Toyota Tundra, over the curb, through the freshly planted and landscaped garden, around the barrier, and didn’t look back.
The other dupes also stuck in the lot were horrified.
The people-less automatic payment machine world is great. Until it isn’t.
Oh, and I’m trading the Tundra this week. Very environmentally unfriendly and gas guzzly. (Climbs curbs like a trooper, though.)
53 Graphics Girl on 06.24.18 at 8:52 pm
The war on cash is real. The governments want control over your info and money. Use cash and send a message. Keep cash alive!
————————————————————————————————
People can’t even pay cash for their morning coffee,tap and go.
My daughter renovated her kitchen, I made the deal she paid cash when she saw the stack of $100.00 bills on the counter broken down in piles for labour,material,tax, permits,dumpsters, the finished basement is now on hold.
P.s. if you think the money you have in the bank belongs to you, go and get it.
#87 Howard on 06.25.18 at 6:34 am
Good. At least the Trudeau government is doing a few things right.
____________
Howard, Howard, Howard… have you learned nothing about the comments section here? EVERYTHING Trudeau does is wrong and anything that goes wrong anywhere in the world is his fault. If there is good news is because of Trump or Harper.
You’re taking a balanced, fair approach and actually using your brain. We have no time for that here.
#81-SURE-Donald Trump is a moron and you are a genius-that is why his life has been the American Wet Dream and yours is the way it is-the Yorkville Renter.
41 BTC does not crash…until…
I hear you. I’m looking at being forced into the RE market an know it’ll crash shortly after, I can’t time anything right it seems.
Renting isn’t all this blog cracks it up to be. I’v been renting and waiting for prices to drop for 10 years, since the ’08 meltdown, moved several times, had horrible landlords, lived in places so noisy I didn’t sleep through an entire night in 2 years, and now getting the house I’m living in sold out from under me, not the first time this has happened either. This spring RE took a hike up in prices and I’ve got a steady job here, close to family, ect. Looks like I may have to relocate now, quit a good job and move somewhere I can afford. Looking at possibly building, but need a place to live while I build and I’m not paying the landlord $270K for a tear down. This market is so crazy, I don’t know who is paying these mortgages, but I don’t have a hope. Sick wife that can’t work, I’m a tradesman and can only dream of owning a house. Might end up with a trailer if I stay here, but that’s a good way to waste money too as they depreciate, not increase. Good thing I stayed out of the RE market and missed making a piss pot of money here….
DELETED
People need to chill out about the significance of buying Bitcoin via credit card. Most Bitcoin is bought online and credit cards are the simplest way to do that. Have you never shopped online?
It doesn’t mean the Bitcoin was actually bought on credit.
#92 Big Kahuna on 06.25.18 at 8:37 am
#81-SURE-Donald Trump is a moron and you are a genius-that is why his life has been the American Wet Dream and yours is the way it is-the Yorkville Renter.
________________
I’ve never met the man but from what I can see I’m a lot happier with my life than Trump is with his. A lot of anger there.
So glad fomo is leaving the crypto market. I still love crypto. Trying to build a dApp right now. My token with be pegged to the USD. If it goes down, then we in a heap to trouble.
#43 Nonplused on 06.24.18 at 7:44 pm
Call me old fashioned but gold seems like a better bet. Sure, it’s just another commodity now, but at least it has intrinsic value so you can always trade it for something. You can put it in your pocket and walk it down to the pawn shop. They’ll do some tests and give you cash. Maybe not what you paid, but something.
————————————-
You’re old school. I’d argue the only intrinsic value gold has is on a rapper’s neck chain or the grill in their mouths.
Cryptos’ intrinsic value is in it’s utility. Majority of the tokens now are on platforms that do nothing or yet to be even made. Think beyond money transactions and Visa/Mastercard. How about a token that by its very nature, when mined, is verifying where every dollar had been spent in a charity or…gasp…the government?!
– There can be no currencies without a regulator to ensure the medium of exchange is reliable, non-volatile and backed with something that actually exists – like a central bank and governments possessing the power to tax”
So where would gold fit in here? It’s been used as money for a lot longer than any central bank or fiat currency…none of which have stood the test of time.
Theft of BTC is not the same as hacking the blockchain or rendering it worthless, which has not happened.
The stock markets have survived manipulation since their inception, yet they still exist and people still invest in them.
Does the software in a video game have value? Hard to tell, but people buy them and invest in creating them. If it doesn’t have value to you, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.
#45 BigBear on 06.24.18 at 7:57 pm
I agree 100% on BTC and it will go to zero in much the same fashion Napster disappeared only to be replaced by the regulated iTunes and Spotify… Blockchain isn’t going anywhere. As I type this, there is a token that is set to disrupt SWIFT and free up Trillions in liquidity parked in Nostro and Vostra accounts (Garth knows what SWIFT is) The company behind the tech (Ripple) are working WITH regulators and banks to revolutionize the system from within (as Garth describes) They have a very bright executive team and are highly focused on crypto utility (not speculation) Their preferred token XRP will be the Phoenix to arise from the crypto ashes when it all goes down as predicted on the cover of The Economist 30 years ago. Google it. Just like the dotcom bubble, the carnage will be epic but from the dotcom ashes, a few companies emerged… Google, Apple etc. Ripple will be the next household name and XRP will be the digital asset of choice as it is the only one that is engineered to settle cross-border transactions in real time for fractions of a cent where SWIFT took 5 days with exorbitant fees and an error rate north of acceptable. Imagine snail mail with its fees and errors vs email. Who wouldn’t want that?
————————————–
Banks wouldn’t want what you described above. That’s why so many call for the failure of cryptos. They will fight it up until they make their own controlled/centralized crypto. Then it a 180 degree turn and we’ll see all the positive articles of Bank X’s crypto…how secure it is, how efficient it is, blah, blah, blah.
As for Ripple, most cryptos can do what they are doing. Their secret sauce isn’t anything special. Any crypto that pegs themselves to fiat at 1:1 with actual/transparent reserves can replace the SWIFT network. Just have to start off small and grow the network.
#91 CJBob on 06.25.18 at 8:34 am
#87 Howard on 06.25.18 at 6:34 am
Good. At least the Trudeau government is doing a few things right.
____________
Howard, Howard, Howard… have you learned nothing about the comments section here? EVERYTHING Trudeau does is wrong and anything that goes wrong anywhere in the world is his fault. If there is good news is because of Trump or Harper.
You’re taking a balanced, fair approach and actually using your brain. We have no time for that here.
——————————————
Well put me down for T2 being wrong “only” 90% of the time :)
I agree with the government on marijuana legalization and I’m glad they’re putting measures in place to prevent and prosecute tax evasion (remains to be seen whether they are only toothless gestures though). He stays on that path and ditches the cultural marxism and narcissistic spectacles (India, etc), I may be able to look at him without throwing up in my mouth.
I wouldn’t count on it though.
#87 Howard: – There is an old saying to remember, its too old and too late now – checkmate!
Currency Forecasting is Difficult
Take a look at where the banks were forecasting the Canadian dollar to be in Q3 (which of course starts on Sunday).
These forecast are only about a month old and only one bank (CIBC) saw the dip in the Canadian dollar coming.
I got this data in a table from Knightsbridge Financial in an email dated May 28.
For comparison the the exchange rate right now is $1.33 Canadian per U.S. dollar.
FX Forecast Table May 2018
Scotia 1.26
RBC 1.24
BMO 1.26
CIBC 1.32
TD Bank 1.28
National 1.23
Five of the Six banks now appear to have dramatically over-forecast the value of the Canadian dollar. (Under-forecast the cost to buy a U.S. dollar) The Trump NAFTA risk was under estimated.
My point is not to criticize the banks but rather to suggest that forecasting exchange rates is very difficult indeed. Relying on where ANYONE “sees” (I laugh at that term) the dollar going can be very dangerous.
The new rules regarding Trust Funds won’t come into effect until 2021, and they don’t apply to all Trust Funds. This must be a misprint, so we all need one of those government updates changing the narrative. Now where is my scotch because sure could use a shot in my tea.
When I reviewed Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, I saw it as an elegant system to rival double entry accounting for our online remittance company. Anyone can read the 8-10 page whitepaper in ten minutes and get the idea that Bitcoin is a system to transact online between persons without needing an intermediary to confirm and expedite the contract. Once people started holding the bitcoin as a store of value it completely corrupted the system.
Back at the beginning, the blockchain allowed us to move bitcoins around at a couple hundred/thousand bitcoins per $1. I and most early adopters didn’t expect or consider bitcoin would in itself be of value. It should have stayed as a simple record of a transaction and have value tied only to the real object or service transacted on agreed upon by the parties in the contract.
TheRedPin Realty Inc. now in Receivership
#92 Big Kahuna on 06.25.18 at 8:37 am
“#81-SURE-Donald Trump is a moron….” You got that right. Oh, I see, you were just being facetious. For a moment I thought you were coming to your senses! :)
“… and you are a genius—that is why his life has been the American Wet Dream and yours is the way it is—the Yorkville Renter.”
What are you talking about? I’d be ashamed to show my face in public if I were Trump! He’s a worldwide pariah—one of the most destestable, despicable, and contemptible persons ever!
I’d much rather be Buffett, a man of principles and integrity—and a Democrat! If you need to hero-worship a billionaire, Buffett is your man. (I bet Shawn Allen agrees with me.)
Oh—and Trump claims to be worth $10 billion, but Buffett has donated almost three times that amount to charity! :)
In the world of politics always watch for an agenda pattern. The Trans Mountain Pipeline, and the Weed Bills were rushed through with an Act of Parliament, but with a New Rules on Trust Taxation, which is old news, nothing can or will go into effect until 2021. I would say this is not a priority for unknown reasons, and smells fishy, because they have been sitting on this for a very long time.
#53 Graphics Girl on 06.24.18 at 8:52 pm
The war on cash is real. The governments want control over your info and money. Use cash and send a message. Keep cash alive!
——————————————————————
I so agree ! Keep cash alive !!!
Sadly you can see the kids today haven’t learned basic math skills in school, is that school over crowding?
Why not teach the kids basic math and spelling in school any more? It’s frightening how young people have zero clue in budgeting and finance. Isn’t that a basic right ?
M55BC
102 Shawn Allen on 06.25.18 at 9:38 am
Currency Forecasting is Difficult
Take a look at where the banks were forecasting the Canadian dollar to be in Q3 (which of course starts on Sunday).
These forecast are only about a month old and only one bank (CIBC) saw the dip in the Canadian dollar coming.
I got this data in a table from Knightsbridge Financial in an email dated May 28.
For comparison the the exchange rate right now is $1.33 Canadian per U.S. dollar.
FX Forecast Table May 2018
Scotia 1.26
RBC 1.24
BMO 1.26
CIBC 1.32
TD Bank 1.28
National 1.23
Five of the Six banks now appear to have dramatically over-forecast the value of the Canadian dollar. (Under-forecast the cost to buy a U.S. dollar) The Trump NAFTA risk was under estimated.
My point is not to criticize the banks but rather to suggest that forecasting exchange rates is very difficult indeed. Relying on where ANYONE “sees” (I laugh at that term) the dollar going can be very dangerous.
……
Not suprising, they don’t even know what Herdonomics is. Been long since 1.2625. $$$$
IMHO, the Powers That Be, are engineering the downfall of crypto currencies. They are all shorting this e- money and making a boatload of money doing so. Would not surprise me if the thefts continue and get worse. Could even be Government funded hackers…
Not too long before these private industry cryptocurrencies will be made illegal. Then real money, from real countries, will take over the role.
When should you sell?
How soon is now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTOHFMuFkoo
My boyfriend bought 2 bitcoins when they were stupid cheap many years ago, at $80 a pop. He’s an early adopter and interested by new tech and less so by making money. Then he forgot about then. Fast forward to last year when he started selling it off bit by bit even though prices were still going up. In any case, while doing his taxes this year he mentioned he had to pay capital gains taxes on the sold bitcoin. My question to you is: Does that mean that all the people who bought bitcoin during peak price at christmas time on their credit cards, get to claim capital losses as well?
Only if they sell, and the losses can only be used to offset capital gains. – Garth
Why are crypto currencies ultimately not a secure / long term store of value?
You can’t have infinite stores of value, and have them worth anything. BTC may have a finite amount of coins, but what about Ethereum, Litecoin, etc? There are thousands of crypto currencies on the market, and there is no limit to creating more. How can each one be worth much?
Blockchain’s usefulness as a distributed ledger does not mean it is a great investment.
#89 dharma bum on 06.25.18 at 7:23 am
Lol, good going!
I remember during university, I had to park in the hellscape of asphalt parking lots at York University, and a couple times, I decided, I’m not paying them to exit this overpriced parking lot, so I just drove over the curb, haha. So liberating. When I tell this to other people, some looked at me like I had committed a serious crime. It can be really satisfying to flip off the rules and just make your own. Within reason of course. Always a calculated risk. Understand the system, what limitations/flaws there are versus what you stand to gain, and then go for it. Kinda like investing, or tax avoidance, haha.
Garth,
Your next Harley may be Made in Germany.
http://m.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/harley-davidson-zieht-wegen-eu-zoellen-teil-der-produktion-aus-usa-ab-a-1214867.html
#101 Howard: – Do you agree to this? Amy Porath who is the Director of Research for the Canadian Centre on substance abuse and addiction in Ottawa stated the following. Smoking marijuana more than doubles the risk of being in a vehicle collision. Associate Professor Mark Asbridge from Dalhousie University in Halifax found smoking cannabis three hours before driving doubled a driver’s risk of having a motor vehicle accident. Why did the Liberal government do their research based on USA factors rather than here in Canada? Then there was the uproar from the Medical Association with facts that were ignored.
#114 Dissident
When I was at York I was driving a car registered to my mother (only way to get a good insurance rate) after a couple of months I realized that parking tickets at York weren’t parking authority tickets. The only recourse York had to those that got tickets was to withhold your degree until you paid your fees. Since my car was registered to my mom and she wasn’t planning on attending York I racked up 3k in tickets, still unpaid to this day. I have my degree and there is nothing they can do!
I gather it was not a degree in Ethics? – Garth
This is better known by the Cannabis Act. It is difficult to find, but while we were all sleeping, including myself, none of us paid close attention to the original platform stated by the Liberal Party of Canada for the defined reasons for this Act. I read it the other day, and the logic made no sense at all. I must of had a stupid moment to fall for this all, as was too busy with other stuff of no importance.
Best post I ever read about Bitcoin. Thanks for bringing clarity to this concerning pyramid scheme that has no value in the end.
PART 2:
In the end we will have Fiat Crypto Currencies AND Crypto Currencies like Bitcoin.
Here’s a simple comparison:
* Central Bank issued digital/crypto currency:
– You will lose about 1-2% of your purchasing power every year… COMPOUNDED. via Aka. “Inflation”
– You will have zero privacy with any of your purchases. Want to buy some self-help books, pay for a psychologist or foreign medical services without your government and banks knowing about, it won’t be possible. Want to fund government opposition parties? You will be targeted. It’s kind of hard to be an activist when all your spending is documented and visible to the governments you want to protest. Your government and banks will know how often you have sex… how else you going to buy condoms and other birth control options? Oh and your girlfriend probably won’t be getting anymore lingerie .
– Your government/banks will be able to garnish your wages
– Capital controls will be so easy after this. Totalitarian governments are going to love this technology.
– Considering that Yahoo, Equifax, Target, FBI and even the NSA can’t prevent from being hacked, you can bet that government issued digital currencies are going to be hacked… on a MASSIVE scale. We’re talking TRILLIONS per hit. You ain’t seen economic collapse faster than a nation’s currency going to zero overnight.
The list goes on…
* Benefits of Crypto Currencies:
– No government confiscation easily possible
– You choose how much you want to pay in taxes. Don’t like how your local dictator keeps spending all your tax money to feed his croneys and buy military weapons for endless wars? Well you can opt out.
– Your purchasing value actually goes up massively over time, even after 70% declines.
– With more advanced Smart Contract technologies, we can greatly reduce the size of government
– The list of benefits is actually really long, but here’s the bottom line:
Nearly every bluechip tech company is looking into blockchain, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and every investment banker is foaming at the mouth to get into crypto and trying to legitimize Bitcoin for wall street trading on a massive scale – globally, the research departments of every central bank are hiring armies of consultants to figure out their crypto strategy. People are quiting their banking and silicon valley high paid jobs to get into crypto… the next bubble is going to be in the TRILLIONS. Right now crypto is $250Billion, it’s peanuts. It’s not too late to get in, but it will be eventually.
Buffett versus Trump
Yes, I agree with Gravy train at 107 that Buffett is worthy of hero-worship while Trump is not.
I am sure that Buffett would love to speak out against Trump but he has to hesitate because of the backlash to Berkshire that would impact employees and share owners.
Buffett however, agrees that trade should be balanced . Not balanced with every other country but overall imports should equal exports otherwise as he puts it America force feeds dollars to the world by buying stuff and if the world does not buy American stuff then they tend to come and buy up American assets although that includes lending the american dollars back to the U.S. government. Buffett wrote a paper about 10 years ago on how to achieve exactly balanced trade using a system of tradable import permissions/tokens. Each dollar of exports would generate a dollar of import tokens and these could be sold to an importer.
Buffett would never approve of Trump’s lying and lack of regard for facts or just his plain lack of humanity.
Buffett came out as a Democrat but only after his incredibly staunch republican (and three-term congressman) father had died. This was mid to late 60’s.
#117 I’m stupid on 06.25.18 at 12:30 pm
#114 Dissident
When I was at York I was driving a car registered to my mother (only way to get a good insurance rate) after a couple of months I realized that parking tickets at York weren’t parking authority tickets. The only recourse York had to those that got tickets was to withhold your degree until you paid your fees. Since my car was registered to my mom and she wasn’t planning on attending York I racked up 3k in tickets, still unpaid to this day. I have my degree and there is nothing they can do!
I gather it was not a degree in Ethics? – Garth
———-
I have a feeling it was an MBA.
Garth,
I respectfully disagree. I don’t think you know enough about crypto and blockchain technology. Governments will want this, and honestly, this is what I’m scared of; they will know every single transaction you’ve ever done. Forever. Price of crypto-currencies have been manipulated by the big players, and now, institutional money is jumping in. These professional traders/investors will know how to shake out amateurs. So many big players (professors, executives, CEOs, software developers, etc) have quit their high paying jobs to jump into it. It’s the next big thing; or maybe it’s not.
Anyways, I’ve spends hundreds of hrs learning/understanding crypto and I’ve only scratched the surface. The more you understand, the more you realize how awesome this idea is. And like any new ideas, it is highly volatile, and will continue being so until there is mass adoption. Currently, less than 1% of the world population is in crypto. But I agree that it’s not a safe investment and the price is speculative. Until mass adoption occurs, daily swings up to 50% will continue to happen.
Crypto investment (or better said speculation) is for the person who wants to throw some money at a new disruptive thing (think early days of Netflix, Amazon, etc) and then hope there is mass adoption. It is not a way to build a safe, growing, diversified portfolio.
Here is my prediction for my blog dogs: crypto will continue going down until there is a Bitcoin ETF. Once that occurs, that is when I’ll go more heavily in it. Everyone knows how to buy an ETF, but very few people have the technical background on how to buy and SAFELY store cryptos, and even fewer understand how it works.
As long as there are corrupt “regulators” there will be cryptos.
120 CryptoFuture on 06.25.18 at 1:00 pm
Nearly every bluechip tech company is looking into blockchain, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and every investment banker is foaming at the mouth to get into crypto and trying to legitimize Bitcoin for wall street trading on a massive scale – globally
——————————–
Speaking of ethics,
goldman or their alumni would like to figure how to separate main street from their crypto, and keep it all.
#122 Stone – According to the World University of rankings for Canada 2018, do not hurt his feelings because York University is a fine school that needs to do better at number 16, so they need to have free parking to boost the student moral – solution!
The gloves came off against the beast by President Xi Jinping because the Chinese mind became exposed. “China is not going to yield to outside pressure, and eat the bitter fruit.” ” In the west you have the notion that if somebody hits you on the left cheek, you turn the other cheek. In our culture we bunch back.”
This blog has been bashing Bitcoin for many years, bitcoin is not going away, I remember when the bashing happened the first time it hit 1000$ back in 2012. Today it’s at ~6000$ and it is no where near dead.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not going away, they are here to stay.
A spectacularly bad investment. – Garth
Crypto rings like the Sprott disciples a few years ago thinking silver bullion was going to the moon. We all know how that turned out. Like passing a kidney stone.
How the hell do you short bitcoin?
The Dow shed 400 points, or 1.7%, on Monday following news that President Donald Trump plans to crack down on Chinese investment in major technologies in the United States. The drop left the index on track for its worst day in two months and its ninth decline in the past 10 sessions.
___________________________________________
How is that trade war going Donald?
Chinese about to dump $100 billion into their own economy.
Harley Davidson about to set up shop in Europe to circumvent Dumb-ass Donald Trumps F-ups.
Trump is an ill-informed idiot with multiple idiots surrounding him helping him to be more ill-informed.
Trump will win the trade war even if he has to take down the entire worldwide economy to say he did win. So who will you sell your very expensive made in America stuff to now?
I gather it was not a degree in Ethics? – Garth
I played by the rules, not my fault a group of PHDs got out witted by a 20 year old.
@232
Here is my prediction for my blog dogs: crypto will continue going down until there is a Bitcoin ETF. Once that occurs, that is when I’ll go more heavily in it. Everyone knows how to buy an ETF, but very few people have the technical background on how to buy and SAFELY store cryptos, and even fewer understand how it works.
—-
Canady bitcon ETF, hey dude what’s up with your theory, ETF is already there.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-02-07/canada-s-first-blockchain-etf-launches-amid-bitcoin-volatility
Garth, I’m sooooo happy that you’re embracing digital currencies and enthusiastically heralding their inevitable domination :)
But you should know something. All that stuff you love about “the man”, like tight control, regulation and all that? That’s gonna make taxation real easy. Like real, REAL easy. It’s gonna be impossible to hide, no matter where you go. Have a look at India, where it’s already beginning. Oh, the gnashing of teeth of those that are used to hiding their wealth.
And I know what you’re gonna say, lefties don’t run things. Well, the magazine The Economist has long been the voice of what the global western elites are thinking at any one point in time. And all that Trump stuff? It’s got them scared. It’s got them changing their views on taxation.
Have a look and see for yourself what’s coming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0xwmGM0DOY
I guess what people should ask themselves regarding cryptos is, what happens if (as happens every other week) my exchange is hacked and all my crypto money is stolen?
The answer is, you lose all your money.
The exchange will NOT make you whole. You store your cryptos at your own risk. If someone hacks and steals them, that is your problem.
This stands in stark contrast to what happens when a bank account is compromised and money is removed.
The bank will always make you whole. So you do not risk leaving your money or investments in a bank account. If the bank is hacked and your money is stolen, you will be made whole by the bank.
This is huge. Owning cryptos is massively risky. At any time you could lose everything, with no recourse at all. All that it takes is your exchange to be hacked, and you are done for. Your entire net worth is gone and you can never recover it.
Yeah, give me some cryptos as investment. Sounds like a really great idea to me……
#54 Keith
@#36 Smoking Man
Are the aliens you talk to going to pay for Trump’s Space Force?
————————————–
Get with the program. We need Trump’s Space Force to defeat the bug planet.
Hey Toronturds – could you perhaps just take a break, and stop MURDERING each other!?!?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/06/25/a-deadly-weekend-of-shootings-in-toronto.html
Good grief, what a pathetic bunch of low-lifes and scumbags, in the most over-rated suburban wasteland on the planet.
Your properties are worth a fraction of what you think they are, because you are a bunch of delusional thugs and losers.
So much better to live anywhere but the GTA.
Bonus: outside Toronto, sports teams also sometimes WIN!
#134 Ace Goodheart on 06.25.18 at 4:53 pm
Incorrect. You should always have access to your private keys.
Not your keys, not your crypto.
#137 BRAJ on 06.26.18 at 8:41 am
Yep Braj, #134 Ace Goodheart just proves how little people know about cryptos.
#13
Notice the date. But it’s ok to blame Trump if you need to.
http://amp.dailycaller.com/2017/05/26/unions-slam-harley-davidson-for-overseas-production-plans/
Crypto currency simply plays with general public emotions and benefits a parallel economy. Which in my opinion is worse than paper money.
At least, I can feel cash in my pockets.