Member Info for fleccy

Garwool, the article is misleading because Bitcoin mining is unproductive. Bitcoin is useful for one thing, which is speculative bets on the price going higher; I'd liken it to gambling, there are winners and losers and the industry employs people, but Bitcoin itself produces nothing it just redistributes wealth between different parties. Apparently Bitcoin mining consumes about 147 terawatt-hours of electricity each year and what does all that energy produce? Some code that people can store in a cold wallet in a safe. The Bitcoin once produced doesn't fuel cars, it isn't used in food production, it does nothing until it's sold and transferred into another cold wallet and stored in someone else's safe, with each transaction using more electricity. I would say Bitcoin mining is probably the worst use of energy on the planet, because the product derived from the mining has no meaningful use.

Pas, clearly Blockchain in the form of Stablecoins has various uses, ranging from commodity backed tokens to CBDC's, whereas Bitcoin serves no useful purpose. Proof of Work is a flawed system due to the amount of energy required to process the Blocks, and Bitcoin is doubly flawed due to the limited transaction space in each Block; One 1MB Block every 10 minutes restricts the number of network transactions possible, so BTC's ability to process transactions is an inherent unfixable design flaw, without a Fork like BSV fundamentally changing the protocol. In my opinion, the only reason Bitcoin still has legs is because many of the World's super rich have bet vast sums on it, Spot ETF's are probably an attempt to bail out the over invested Mega Whales and their financial backers.

Pas feel free to invest in BTC if you think it's worth over $38,000, I wont be joining you.

Nick, Bitcoin would never ever ever replace Fiat currency. Disregarding the fact that it fails every single use case, used to justify its existence, it's also unsafe with all the risk placed on the owner. Make a mistake with your Bitcoin and it's gone forever, if your password gets hacked it's gone forever, basically your on your own when your Bitcoin disappears into the void. Brilliant for criminals, useless for everyone else. Purchasing Bitcoin is simply a bet that others will come in and drive the price up, and just like a Ponzi scheme there's no underlying asset if the price collapses.

I might buy 10 tokens if it dropped to £1, but I'd think of it as throw away money. As I've said many times the price is driven by speculation, manipulation and belief, even if it went to $100,000 I'd still argue it's worthless.

Computer says no:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU&t=1s

Assuming their algorithm's perform as they say, they can only be used with Proof of Work tokens using Sha-256. It would have to be Tokens like BCH and BSV, altcoins based on Ethereum aren't compatible.

The TalkTalk/VMO2 narrative in relation to BT is non sensical in my opinion. If VMO2 took over TalkTalk it'd take them years to migrate the customers in VMO2 franchise areas, much longer for customers in non franchise areas, and there's no guarantee that many of the customers would want to move over. The risks for VMO2 would be huge, and in any transition period all it would mean is VMO2 replaces TalkTalk as Openreach's customer. When the original news broke, suggesting VMO2 were running the slide rule over TalkTalk, I said at the time that it didn't make any sense and I was proved correct as it came to nothing, I don't believe anything's changed since then.

It's obviously a big deal for BT since they're currently spending around £5 Billion a year in Capex; It's also a big deal for Vodafone, since they've committed to spend £11 billion rolling out stand alone 5G across the UK. The point i was making in my 15:30 post, is that any tax saving's coming through in the current high Capex years could reduce borrowing to fund said Capex; Or they could use the tax savings to increase following years Capex and speed up rollouts. No doubt their accountants will have worked out the best course of action.

Beo I have no doubt you're knowledgeable when it comes to tax, but Jansen (BT) pushed hard to have this made permanent, so it must be advantageous for telecom providers. Explain to me why Jansen made a big deal of this if there's little benefit?

Telecom providers like VOD, BT and VMO2 are capex heavy businesses, not just during rollouts like FTTP and 5G, so making Full Expensing permanent is good for these companies; That said, Full Expensing during the current rollouts may reduce the need to borrow while the Capex is very high, which is a secondary benefit.

Nick the market values Fiat based on the economic strength of the issuing country, so sterling value is based on the strength of the UK economy, the US Dollar valuation is based on the strength of the US economy; Things like interest rates also feed into the Fiat valuations. BTC isn't issued, it's created with vast amounts of electricity and has a valuation based purely on supply and demand. Because BTC is created digitally and is easily substituted by other manufactured Crypto's, it's value is based on nothing more than belief.

The Autumn statement is of no benefit to QBT as far as I can tell. QBT aren't adding any infrastructure in the UK, so they wont benefit Full Expensing. QBT's "AI" isn't AI in the true sense, it's an algorithm with a specific purpose, and since none of QBT's operations are in the UK they wouldn't benefit anyway. When the Government talk about Quantum, they aren't talking about algorithms aimed at processing BTC blocks, they're talking about the underlying technology and potential beneficial uses.

The record date is irrelevant to the price.

Every halving is a risk for BTC; Without BTC seeing significant price rises, On-Grid miners wont be able to meet their operational costs. Miners who generate their own electricity, maybe through hydro or flare gas, will be the only likely survivors if the BTC price stagnates or drops, so they might be the double winners since Bitcoin Difficulty will likely reduce as big miners fail. The flaws in BTC are obvious and enthusiasts are being taken for a ride in my opinion.

The reason I don't like BTC is because I think it's a big con, I don't see any route where it replaces Fiat currencies or has uses for anything other than speculative bets. Proof of work, requiring vast amounts of energy to process single Blocks is non productive and an obvious waste of a critical resource, the electricity wasted processing BTC could be used for ways that actually benefit mankind. Proof of stake is obviously superior to proof of work and there'll be lots of uses for stablecoin's in the future, so I'm not against Blockchain/Crypto if I can see where it might be useful. Of course BTC vested interests will create negative narratives in relation to Stablecoin, but proof of stake is backed by real world useful stuff whereas BTC which isn't backed by anything.

If that was true, why does it experience wild price swings? My personal view is that it will eventually fail and a lot of naive believers will get burned. All Crypto has done is enable criminals to move illicit funds, or take payment for illegal activities and ransomware attacks, I'm surprised it wasn't banned years ago. If the US authorities really don't want it, they'll find some way of killing it by whatever means are available to them.

AimHigher I've seen the wild valuations for Bitcoin, from people like Cathie Wood, but they would talk it up because they're heavily invested and therefore have a vested interest. The Spot ETF hype is having an impact and will likely pump the price once any are approved, but $200,000 a token? I doubt it. As I've said many times, Bitcoin has failed all the use cases touted for it. It's useless as a currency as it has limited capacity to process transactions and transaction charges are expensive, and likely to get more expensive with each halving. The lightning network is a sticking plaster on a gaping wound and the digital gold, or store of value use cases are based purely on belief. What I don't get is how so many people can get sucked into believing the hype.

How low will it go? 😉

Every time BTC gets near $38,000 it takes a big downward hit, then miraculously bounces back; It's either being manipulated, or some big sellers are taking the opportunity to unload as it get around $37,500. This price action isn't a good thing, as it's indicative of the flawed nature of the token and doesn't bode well for the vested interests who talk up the BTC price. As the price rises higher, the more the Hodlers will be tempted to cash out and as much as it's interesting to watch from the sidelines, if I was holding the token I'd be tempted to get out as soon as I was in profit.

I thought Vodafone ADR ex dividend dates have always preceded the UK, either way you'd have a distortion due to the time difference between the markets. If that wasn't enough, I believe the Nasdaq is closed tomorrow for Thanksgiving.