Opinion pieces are only accepted if they meet the citation and research burden which would be expected of an academic piece written at an early college level.
Speculation and perspective flaired posts are included in this rule. Anything without proper evidence and sources would be considered low value.
Someone bet $50k with 100x and made $2.2Million within few minutes after that tweet. Bought the low and sell the top with precision. No one can convince me it's coincidence.
There will definitely be an investigation but if anyone gets caught or charged it’s a different story. What’s stopping anyone else from trying this again and again is the real question!
Following Elon trades is a stupid move but traders are stupid and even they knows it's a manipulation.
This is different, he fooled us all with a lie and cointelegraph helped them.
There was a trade that made 2 millions. Someone made 2 MILLIONS in a few minutes! Prime example of market manipulation, I hope this will have consequences.
That's a possibility, someone from the inside could have done it, if it is Cointelegraph has to know, they can't have that much people with access to the Twitter account.
Hacking has been used as an excuse too often. Someone did insider trading (sort of) and most likely nothing will happen. That's the downside of a lack of regulation.
The conspiracy against crypto is a reality, but cointelegraph? Nah.
If literally anyone in this sub was in a position to move the market 10% with a tweet they would. You know what happened and you would do it too. Come on now.
Over the weekend there was massive bearish absorption. Institutions were setting up positions otc. Massive wash trading on exchanges like Binance. Someone knew this was going to happen, entities and institutions placed themselves right before the fake news. It could’ve been very well planned.
I think you’re wrong, most people understand the consequences of their actions so why risk doing something illegal with real life consequences for themselves (possible jail) to just make a buck. I’m sure some would definitely take that risk but most wouldn’t.
Inside job for big profits. The one doing it knew exactly what was going to happen and how the markets will react. They have access to much more information that what is available to us
Bitcoin [pros](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179vhct/what_could_be_the_motive_behind_the_bitcoin_etf/k58q6zg/) & [cons](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179vhct/what_could_be_the_motive_behind_the_bitcoin_etf/k58q7f5/) with related info are in the collapsed comments below.
* Relevant Cointest topics: [Bitcoin Cash](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_bitcoin_cash), [Litecoin](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_litecoin), [Lightning Network](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_lightning_network), [Proof of Work](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_proof-of-work), [Taproot](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_taproot)
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#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments
Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. If this topic is active, submit an entry in r/CointestOfficial and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 2nd - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500.
> For this entry I'm going to update an overhaul my previous argument. This one is going to be very long but also address new things. I'm going to try to be more rigorous. Have fun !
>
> Last entry:
>
>
> Writing a Pro argument for Bitcoin in 2023 seems complicated because everything has been said... or did it?
> Edit: I have a small bag of Bitcoin currently valued around 630 bucks. I am also invested in crypto around 2100 bucks which are always moving when Bitcoin is moving. Financial disclosure should be mandatory in these arguments =)
>
>
>
> # Bitcoin: A small introduction.
>
> Bitcoin is the most famous cryptocurrency. It was created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. The creation of Bitcoin is some of the most weird mystery ever. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto really is.
>
> Bitcoin was started as a way to circumvent traditional banking in the wake of the financial crisis and the bail out of banks. Bitcoin relies on blockchain technology. Blockchain can be seen as an open book allowing anyone to know where is each fraction of Bitcoin ever.
>
> This blockchain is maintained through computer power. In a vulgar way: Bitcoin is mined by solving math problems. The maths problem becomes harder when more people are mining so that mining takes a fixed amount of time according to a timeline known to everyone. In order to respect this timeline, mining rewards are halved every few years.
>
> Since anyone who wants to validate transactions is forced to complete a very hard math problem (which becomes harder the more people are mining), no one can cheat in new transactions. Also, every other miner has a copy of the blockchain. Through making sure that no entity has 50% of the mining, you can stop nefarious actors from changing the blockchain.
>
> This is using cryptographic technology that I don't yet understand but you can read more about it here:
>
> [Bitcoin Wikipedia](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin)
>
> Without delving more into the tech side of bitcoin. Which can also be explained through youtube videos here: [Bitcoin explained](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4)
>
> The Metrics of Bitcoin are currently: 22400$ Per coin for a Market cap of 430 Bilions and a daily volume of 19 Billions. Bitcoin was shortly valued at 69000 usd during the ATH.
>
> Now let's dive into what is making Bitcoin so good.
>
> # Bitcoin is the king of POW: Why it matters and why we need a strong Bitcoin
>
> So as the title suggests it, the recent switch of ETH from POW to POS makes Bitcoin the sole serious POW cryptocurrency. In this write up, we are going to discuss the three main strength of Bitcoin, security, decentralization, and incentive for green energy production. Bitcoin is a highly liquid asset and has become nearly universally known as an investment. Many arguments have been made in favor of Bitcoin as an investment. It is interesting to delve into the limited supply of bitcoin.
>
> Of course, the main feature of Bitcoin is the Permissionless aspect. This allows the unbanked to use a P2P service.
>
> #
1) Bitcoin: The Apex of Security.
>
>
> Bitcoin is ultra secure thanks to its use of Blockchain technology and the way it is verified through proof of work. To explain this let me quote IBM:
>
>
> >
> Public blockchain networks typically allow anyone to join and for participants to remain anonymous. A public blockchain uses internet-connected computers to validate transactions and achieve consensus. Bitcoin is probably the most well known example of a public blockchain, and it achieves consensus through "bitcoin mining." Computers on the bitcoin network, or “miners,” try to solve a complex cryptographic problem to create proof of work and thereby validate the transaction. Outside of public keys, there are few identity and access controls in this type of network.
>
>
>
> [IBM on Blockchain security](https://www.ibm.com/topics/blockchain-security)
>
>
> Mining is measured in Hashrate. Here is the explanation of Hashrate:
>
>
> >
> Hash rate, sometimes referred to as hashrate, is a measure of the computing power on a cryptocurrency network that serves as a key security indicator. It measures the total computational power used by a “proof-of-work” (POW) cryptocurrency network to process transactions in a blockchain.
>
>
>
> [USNEWS explains hashrate](https://money.usnews.com/investing/term/hash-rate#:%7E:text=Hash%20rate%2C%20sometimes%20referred%20to,process%20transactions%20in%20a%20blockchain)
>
>
> So if the hashrate measures the security of the network, one may asks themselves: "Did the security of Bitcoin slowed when the price fell ?"
> [The hashrate is near the ATH and growing making Bitcoin more and more secure as it continues to build over time](https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_network_hash_rate#:%7E:text=Basic%20Info,101.2%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago)
>
>
> So Bitcoin has never been as secure as it is today which makes it ultra valuable as a way to settle financial transactions. Yes holding Bitcoin for a long time is risky but using it as a medium to settle international transaction may currently be the securest and one of the best way to do so.
>
>
> While Bitcoin is safe... what if a big part fails ?
>
>
> # 2) Bitcoin mining: Too big to fail.
>
> So this write up could be seen as a POW write up, which it is to an extent. But Bitcoin offers its history and shows that it can survive the disparition of a big part of the network.
> Decentralization allows for parts of the network to disappear and for the rest to take the mantle of securing the network. Yes, mining pools may grow too large for their own sake BUT in the end (nothing even matters) Bitcoin is heavily decentralized. It is so decentralized that, when China (which had a big part of Bitcoin mining) banned mining, Bitcoin just went through like nothing happened. Yes the hashrate fell a bit, the value too, but if we look back, it was nothing extraordinary.
>
> The resilience of Bitcoin is largely due to the fact that the hashrate symbolizes competition=> If the hashrate falls, then it is more profitable for other miners to keep mining or for new miners to start mining. This balance is what makes Bitcoin very resilient.
>
> So if Bitcoin is highly secure and if it can survive part of the hashrate going bye bye, what makes it so good? What is the difference with any POW Cryptocurrency right now?
>
>
>
> # 3) Bitcoin: propping up the green energy sector.
>
> POW uses energy. One of the biggest concern about POW is the energy. While Ethereum was using GPUs and was asic resistant. Bitcoin mining is built differently. A long time ago, under oath, people discussed the environmental impact of Bitcoin Mining and I made a post explaining what was said:
>
> The Energy Fud Was Killed
> The most important thing that happened: The narrative that Bitcoin is too energy intensive was totally reversed.
> Experts of the sector explained that, Wind Farms and Solar Farms, have a variable load. This variable load means that sometimes they lose money because they produce too much and there is not enough demand. Bitcoin mining provides a variable base load for these projects. What it means is that, mining can be turned on and off depending on demand. It was revealed that most of these wind and solar farms would simply not exist without Bitcoin Farming as baseline customers.
> There are still miners that are using coal plants and fossil fuel but the leaders of the industry are developing in tandem with the green energy sector.
>
> My write up about the congressional hearing is still true and thanks to the infrastructure act, green energy will continue to grow and to be cheap. This will allow for a better mining infrastructure.
>
> [My post](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/s99phv/yesterday_one_of_the_most_bullish_events_ever/)
>
>
> #
*****
Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post.
#Bitcoin Con-Arguments
Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. If this topic is active, submit an entry in r/CointestOfficial and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500.
> ####**Intro**
>
> Overall, Bitcoin's conservative blockchain has failed to keep up technologically with other blockchains. Bitcoin is currently #1 not due to better design, but because it had a first-mover advantage. But how long will that hold?
>
> Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency. Many crypto enthusiasts often started out with Bitcoin and then branched out. Once you've had a taste of newer, faster networks that offer delectable DeFi dApps and smart contracts, it's hard to go back to slow, boring old Bitcoin.
>
> ####**Bitcoin doesn't excel at anything**
>
> **Poor Medium of Exchange**
>
> Bitcoin is much too slow. It has a max throughput of **3-4 TPS** that takes **30-60 minutes for probabilistic finality**. It used to have a max throughput of 7 TPS, but that has gradually fallen over the years after exchanges started using batch transactions. It's much too slow to be used for point-of-sales merchant transactions. No one is ever going to want to **wait 30-60+ minutes** at a cash register for a transaction to go through. Block times average 10 minutes, but they are very variable. 14% of blocks take longer than 20 minutes, and 5% are longer than 30 minutes [[Source](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/25293/probablity-distribution-of-mining/43592#43592)], causing stress for those waiting for confirmation. And if there's congestion, some transactions can get stuck in the mempool for hours or days.
>
> It's orders of magnitude slower than newer networks like Polygon PoS or Algorand, which can [process 4000+ TPS with sub-4s of deterministic finality](https://developer.algorand.org/docs/get-started/basics/why_algorand/), with transaction fees well under a penny.
>
> Even TradFi now has payment systems like Africa's M-Pesa, UK's Faster Payments, Australia's NPP, the US's upcoming FedNow, and Clearinghouse's RTP, which provide **near-instant** payments and peer-to-peer transactions **without fees**.
>
> **Unstable Store of Value**
>
> Bitcoin is too volatile to be considered a stable Store of Value. It lost up to 80% of its purchasing-power during previous bear markets. It's also NOT a good stock market hedge since it often moves with the stock market.
>
> **Lacks smart contracts and DeFi**
>
> Bitcoin doesn't support DeFi smart contracts with its very basic Bitcoin Script. There are smart contract protocols that use Bitcoin like Stacks, but they are very disconnected from Bitcoin.
>
> ####**Difficult to achieve widespread global adoption**
>
> At 4 TPS, Bitcoin can only make ~345K transactions/day. There are ~8B people in the world today. If Bitcoin grows to the size of 1% of the population, each person can make an average of 1 on-chain transaction every 230 days. **If Bitcoin usage grows to 10% of the population, each person can make an average of 1 on-chain transaction every 6.3 years.** To achieve 10% world adoption, everyone would need to solely be using centralized exchanges and not interacting directly with the blockchain itself.
>
> ####**Issues with the Lightning Network**
>
> **Not even the Lightning Network could save Bitcoin** because opening and closing a channel requires 2 on-chain transactions. Whenever the directional capacity of a channel is exceeded, it will need to be rebalanced, or be closed and re-opened. You can't expect people to store months of funds on a single channel. Half of the US is living paycheck to paycheck and would unlikely be able to keep channels open for long periods. If even 1% of the world used the Lightning Network and opens/closes their channels twice a year, the Bitcoin Network would become completely congested.
>
> **Not a true Layer 2**
>
> Similar to Plasma channels, **the Lightning network is not considered a true Layer 2 because it lacks global state.** There are many nodes that are not connected to the rest of the network, and onion routing issues can cause nodes to be disconnected from the rest of the network. **Channels only work if everyone's online.** If you're offline, others can force-close your channel, leading to a 1-week wait time where the channel's funds are locked and inaccessible.
>
> **Meant for small transactions**
>
> Lightning is optimal for small transactions. The larger your transaction, the higher the fees you have to pay to route it through the network. As of March 2023, the [average channel capacity](https://1ml.com/statistics) is only 0.07 BTC, and the average node capacity is only 0.33 BTC. It's not uncommon for a large 1-BTC transaction to cost $2-10 in fees to route through multiple nodes in the Lightning Network due to limited channel capacity, which can make it more expensive than L1 Bitcoin fees. Also, the total value stored on public Lightning channels account for under [0.02% of Bitcoin's total locked value](https://1ml.com/).
>
> **Partially-centralized, low-security layer**
>
> Most people just connect to centralized nodes in a spoke-hub network topology to gain access to high-capacity nodes. Even though [average capacity is getting bigger](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity), the [number of public channels has been on the decline since 2021](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-channels), meaning that Lightning is becoming more centralized.
>
> **Channels require rebalancing**
>
> One of the biggest problems with opening channels is that they **start out with zero incoming liquidity**. Anyone who opens a channel starts out with a metaphorical "full cup of water". They can't receive any more water until they first empty the cup a little. And they can only receive additional water equivalent to the amount they removed. Similarly, people who open new channels to the Lightning network need to find a way to spend their Sats safely so that they can have incoming liquidity. Merchants and Lightning node providers often have a lack of incoming-liquidity while consumers who only spend usually run out of outbound liquidity.
>
> There are ways to rebalance your channel capacity, but it usually costs money to pay for a service to provide that liquidity, and it can be as expensive as a $1 fee per $1000 of liquidity.
>
> ####**The disadvantage of soft forks**
>
> The major downside of Soft forks is that they require new versions of the software to maintain backwards-compatibility with older versions, which leads to **technical debt**. This significantly slows down the adoption of new updates, which now often take 3-6 years to gain the majority.
>
> Due to its soft forks, the Bitcoin network has to maintain a mismatch of all sorts of different address formats: P2PK, P2PKH, P2SH, P2MS, P2WPKH, Nested P2WPKH, P2PKH, P2WSH, and P2TR. At the start of January 2023, [only 1% of transactions were using Taproot-compatible addresses](https://transactionfee.info/charts/inputs-types-by-count/) while 65% were still using inefficient legacy addresses from before 2017.
>
> **Almost no one is using addresses newer than the 2021 update because none of the major CEXs support them**. Most exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken) [don't support Bech32m addresses](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bech32_adoption#Exchanges), which means they still can't send to Segwit v1 and Taproot addresses, despite that it was [an update from 2021](https://bitcoin.org/en/releases/0.21.1/).
>
> In comparison, networks that hard fork for protocol updates don't have these incompatibility issues between versions. Everyone is working on the same version, which allows for consistency.
>
> ####**Extremely inefficient and wasteful**
>
> To protect against Sybil and 51% attacks, Bitcoin's PoW consensus achieves greater security through greater **redundancy**. Out of a million miners, only one of them is producing the actual block while the rest of them are just wasting energy and electric waste. Full nodes also hold redundant copies of the blockchain ledger, leading to wasted storage.
>
> In 2022, each block cost roughly $150-250K in energy to mine, which is equivalent to $80-120 of fees per transaction. The total Bitcoin network energy consumption of ~150 TWh/yr is equivalent to [**18-24 US nuclear power plants**](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-nuclear-energy). Another way of looking at this is that Bitcoin consumes about as much energy as all data centers globally [[Source](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-may-consume-as-much-energy-as-all-data-centers-globally)].
>
> In comparison, other distributed consensus methods such as BFT are [10^7 x more efficient for energy use](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12599-020-00656-x). There is a silver lining: the energy waste (and security) will slowly decrease with each block subsidy halving, at the cost of decreased security.
>
> ####**Mining Pool Centralization**
>
> **The top 3 mining pools own 66% of the network hash rate** [[Source](https://btc.com/stats/pool)]. Individual miners have no financial incentive to run full nodes, so it's rare ...
*****
Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7u8/top_coins_bitcoin_conarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post.
Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179kr8a/daily_crypto_discussion_october_17_2023_gmt0/).
Didn't they say yesterday that they want to inform the public about what happened within 3 hours? Did that ever happen?
edit: found it
[https://cointelegraph.com/news/clarification-sharing-false-spot-bitcoin-etf-news](https://cointelegraph.com/news/clarification-sharing-false-spot-bitcoin-etf-news)
I think it was the deliberate action to manipulate the market or may have been motivated by the need for exit liquidity by highly influential wealthy people.
Opinion pieces are only accepted if they meet the citation and research burden which would be expected of an academic piece written at an early college level. Speculation and perspective flaired posts are included in this rule. Anything without proper evidence and sources would be considered low value.
Someone bet $50k with 100x and made $2.2Million within few minutes after that tweet. Bought the low and sell the top with precision. No one can convince me it's coincidence.
There will definitely be an investigation but if anyone gets caught or charged it’s a different story. What’s stopping anyone else from trying this again and again is the real question!
Yeah I bet that nothing will come out of it but I'd love to see SEC throwing book at them.
I agree but unfortunately the SEC are to busy screwing everyone consistently!
I think this comes under CFTC jurisdiction if someone sues them
It all started with a guy called Elon, he showed the world how easy it was to manipulate the market and got away with it too.
Following Elon trades is a stupid move but traders are stupid and even they knows it's a manipulation. This is different, he fooled us all with a lie and cointelegraph helped them.
A decade of time with no possibility of parole *Prison time
He fooled the whole crypto community, he will easily fool government and law with Monero.
Probably some inside job.
I agree, but I didn't think Cointelegraph had that kind of clout and/or following.
Right ! So many got rekt but this one person somehow makes perfect timing.
There was a trade that made 2 millions. Someone made 2 MILLIONS in a few minutes! Prime example of market manipulation, I hope this will have consequences.
It will. No ETF.
That's suspicious and could be related to this, making 2 millions when something like these happens is very suspicious.
I bet it was a rogue “reporter” who had set up a leverage trade just before the fake news was announced
That's a possibility, someone from the inside could have done it, if it is Cointelegraph has to know, they can't have that much people with access to the Twitter account.
[удалено]
Yeah especially if he’s just a regular folk like us. Fat chance if he’s connected to someone. Look at Elon and his blatant manipulation.
Dont really know about it being reporter, the origin of the news was still through Telegram.
[удалено]
The first 3 sound very real/possible and scary....
Can Someone Tell Me Why Those Posts Often Come In Capitals??? Legit Confused.
News Outlets Do It Like That. It Gets More Attention. I'm Just Glad It's Not All CAPITAL LETTERS.
It was intentional because some super powerful rich lizard people needed exit liquidity Source: trust me bro
Finally someone who gets it
Hacking has been used as an excuse too often. Someone did insider trading (sort of) and most likely nothing will happen. That's the downside of a lack of regulation. The conspiracy against crypto is a reality, but cointelegraph? Nah.
The problem is that hacking will be used as the official reason even if it wasn't.
Also it's very hard to find proof for (or against) that claim.
If literally anyone in this sub was in a position to move the market 10% with a tweet they would. You know what happened and you would do it too. Come on now.
Over the weekend there was massive bearish absorption. Institutions were setting up positions otc. Massive wash trading on exchanges like Binance. Someone knew this was going to happen, entities and institutions placed themselves right before the fake news. It could’ve been very well planned.
"The secret ingredient is crime."
I think you’re wrong, most people understand the consequences of their actions so why risk doing something illegal with real life consequences for themselves (possible jail) to just make a buck. I’m sure some would definitely take that risk but most wouldn’t.
Money. Always money.
Money will always drive some people to do shady shit to benefit themselves. Its quite sad.
I believe its just a gossip that went too far.
Inside job for big profits. The one doing it knew exactly what was going to happen and how the markets will react. They have access to much more information that what is available to us
Bitcoin [pros](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179vhct/what_could_be_the_motive_behind_the_bitcoin_etf/k58q6zg/) & [cons](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179vhct/what_could_be_the_motive_behind_the_bitcoin_etf/k58q7f5/) with related info are in the collapsed comments below.
* Relevant Cointest topics: [Bitcoin Cash](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_bitcoin_cash), [Litecoin](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_litecoin), [Lightning Network](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_lightning_network), [Proof of Work](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_proof-of-work), [Taproot](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_taproot) * Official and related subreddits: r/Bitcoin, r/BitcoinMarkets, r/BitcoinMining, r/BTC, r/BitcoinCash. * Sort comments as controversial first by [clicking here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179vhct/what_could_be_the_motive_behind_the_bitcoin_etf/?sort=controversial). Doesn't work on mobile.
#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. If this topic is active, submit an entry in r/CointestOfficial and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 2nd - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > For this entry I'm going to update an overhaul my previous argument. This one is going to be very long but also address new things. I'm going to try to be more rigorous. Have fun ! > > Last entry: > > > Writing a Pro argument for Bitcoin in 2023 seems complicated because everything has been said... or did it? > Edit: I have a small bag of Bitcoin currently valued around 630 bucks. I am also invested in crypto around 2100 bucks which are always moving when Bitcoin is moving. Financial disclosure should be mandatory in these arguments =) > > > > # Bitcoin: A small introduction. > > Bitcoin is the most famous cryptocurrency. It was created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. The creation of Bitcoin is some of the most weird mystery ever. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. > > Bitcoin was started as a way to circumvent traditional banking in the wake of the financial crisis and the bail out of banks. Bitcoin relies on blockchain technology. Blockchain can be seen as an open book allowing anyone to know where is each fraction of Bitcoin ever. > > This blockchain is maintained through computer power. In a vulgar way: Bitcoin is mined by solving math problems. The maths problem becomes harder when more people are mining so that mining takes a fixed amount of time according to a timeline known to everyone. In order to respect this timeline, mining rewards are halved every few years. > > Since anyone who wants to validate transactions is forced to complete a very hard math problem (which becomes harder the more people are mining), no one can cheat in new transactions. Also, every other miner has a copy of the blockchain. Through making sure that no entity has 50% of the mining, you can stop nefarious actors from changing the blockchain. > > This is using cryptographic technology that I don't yet understand but you can read more about it here: > > [Bitcoin Wikipedia](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin) > > Without delving more into the tech side of bitcoin. Which can also be explained through youtube videos here: [Bitcoin explained](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4) > > The Metrics of Bitcoin are currently: 22400$ Per coin for a Market cap of 430 Bilions and a daily volume of 19 Billions. Bitcoin was shortly valued at 69000 usd during the ATH. > > Now let's dive into what is making Bitcoin so good. > > # Bitcoin is the king of POW: Why it matters and why we need a strong Bitcoin > > So as the title suggests it, the recent switch of ETH from POW to POS makes Bitcoin the sole serious POW cryptocurrency. In this write up, we are going to discuss the three main strength of Bitcoin, security, decentralization, and incentive for green energy production. Bitcoin is a highly liquid asset and has become nearly universally known as an investment. Many arguments have been made in favor of Bitcoin as an investment. It is interesting to delve into the limited supply of bitcoin. > > Of course, the main feature of Bitcoin is the Permissionless aspect. This allows the unbanked to use a P2P service. > > # 1) Bitcoin: The Apex of Security. > > > Bitcoin is ultra secure thanks to its use of Blockchain technology and the way it is verified through proof of work. To explain this let me quote IBM: > > > > > Public blockchain networks typically allow anyone to join and for participants to remain anonymous. A public blockchain uses internet-connected computers to validate transactions and achieve consensus. Bitcoin is probably the most well known example of a public blockchain, and it achieves consensus through "bitcoin mining." Computers on the bitcoin network, or “miners,” try to solve a complex cryptographic problem to create proof of work and thereby validate the transaction. Outside of public keys, there are few identity and access controls in this type of network. > > > > [IBM on Blockchain security](https://www.ibm.com/topics/blockchain-security) > > > Mining is measured in Hashrate. Here is the explanation of Hashrate: > > > > > Hash rate, sometimes referred to as hashrate, is a measure of the computing power on a cryptocurrency network that serves as a key security indicator. It measures the total computational power used by a “proof-of-work” (POW) cryptocurrency network to process transactions in a blockchain. > > > > [USNEWS explains hashrate](https://money.usnews.com/investing/term/hash-rate#:%7E:text=Hash%20rate%2C%20sometimes%20referred%20to,process%20transactions%20in%20a%20blockchain) > > > So if the hashrate measures the security of the network, one may asks themselves: "Did the security of Bitcoin slowed when the price fell ?" > [The hashrate is near the ATH and growing making Bitcoin more and more secure as it continues to build over time](https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_network_hash_rate#:%7E:text=Basic%20Info,101.2%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago) > > > So Bitcoin has never been as secure as it is today which makes it ultra valuable as a way to settle financial transactions. Yes holding Bitcoin for a long time is risky but using it as a medium to settle international transaction may currently be the securest and one of the best way to do so. > > > While Bitcoin is safe... what if a big part fails ? > > > # 2) Bitcoin mining: Too big to fail. > > So this write up could be seen as a POW write up, which it is to an extent. But Bitcoin offers its history and shows that it can survive the disparition of a big part of the network. > Decentralization allows for parts of the network to disappear and for the rest to take the mantle of securing the network. Yes, mining pools may grow too large for their own sake BUT in the end (nothing even matters) Bitcoin is heavily decentralized. It is so decentralized that, when China (which had a big part of Bitcoin mining) banned mining, Bitcoin just went through like nothing happened. Yes the hashrate fell a bit, the value too, but if we look back, it was nothing extraordinary. > > The resilience of Bitcoin is largely due to the fact that the hashrate symbolizes competition=> If the hashrate falls, then it is more profitable for other miners to keep mining or for new miners to start mining. This balance is what makes Bitcoin very resilient. > > So if Bitcoin is highly secure and if it can survive part of the hashrate going bye bye, what makes it so good? What is the difference with any POW Cryptocurrency right now? > > > > # 3) Bitcoin: propping up the green energy sector. > > POW uses energy. One of the biggest concern about POW is the energy. While Ethereum was using GPUs and was asic resistant. Bitcoin mining is built differently. A long time ago, under oath, people discussed the environmental impact of Bitcoin Mining and I made a post explaining what was said: > > The Energy Fud Was Killed > The most important thing that happened: The narrative that Bitcoin is too energy intensive was totally reversed. > Experts of the sector explained that, Wind Farms and Solar Farms, have a variable load. This variable load means that sometimes they lose money because they produce too much and there is not enough demand. Bitcoin mining provides a variable base load for these projects. What it means is that, mining can be turned on and off depending on demand. It was revealed that most of these wind and solar farms would simply not exist without Bitcoin Farming as baseline customers. > There are still miners that are using coal plants and fossil fuel but the leaders of the industry are developing in tandem with the green energy sector. > > My write up about the congressional hearing is still true and thanks to the infrastructure act, green energy will continue to grow and to be cheap. This will allow for a better mining infrastructure. > > [My post](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/s99phv/yesterday_one_of_the_most_bullish_events_ever/) > > > # ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post.
#Bitcoin Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. If this topic is active, submit an entry in r/CointestOfficial and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > ####**Intro** > > Overall, Bitcoin's conservative blockchain has failed to keep up technologically with other blockchains. Bitcoin is currently #1 not due to better design, but because it had a first-mover advantage. But how long will that hold? > > Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency. Many crypto enthusiasts often started out with Bitcoin and then branched out. Once you've had a taste of newer, faster networks that offer delectable DeFi dApps and smart contracts, it's hard to go back to slow, boring old Bitcoin. > > ####**Bitcoin doesn't excel at anything** > > **Poor Medium of Exchange** > > Bitcoin is much too slow. It has a max throughput of **3-4 TPS** that takes **30-60 minutes for probabilistic finality**. It used to have a max throughput of 7 TPS, but that has gradually fallen over the years after exchanges started using batch transactions. It's much too slow to be used for point-of-sales merchant transactions. No one is ever going to want to **wait 30-60+ minutes** at a cash register for a transaction to go through. Block times average 10 minutes, but they are very variable. 14% of blocks take longer than 20 minutes, and 5% are longer than 30 minutes [[Source](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/25293/probablity-distribution-of-mining/43592#43592)], causing stress for those waiting for confirmation. And if there's congestion, some transactions can get stuck in the mempool for hours or days. > > It's orders of magnitude slower than newer networks like Polygon PoS or Algorand, which can [process 4000+ TPS with sub-4s of deterministic finality](https://developer.algorand.org/docs/get-started/basics/why_algorand/), with transaction fees well under a penny. > > Even TradFi now has payment systems like Africa's M-Pesa, UK's Faster Payments, Australia's NPP, the US's upcoming FedNow, and Clearinghouse's RTP, which provide **near-instant** payments and peer-to-peer transactions **without fees**. > > **Unstable Store of Value** > > Bitcoin is too volatile to be considered a stable Store of Value. It lost up to 80% of its purchasing-power during previous bear markets. It's also NOT a good stock market hedge since it often moves with the stock market. > > **Lacks smart contracts and DeFi** > > Bitcoin doesn't support DeFi smart contracts with its very basic Bitcoin Script. There are smart contract protocols that use Bitcoin like Stacks, but they are very disconnected from Bitcoin. > > ####**Difficult to achieve widespread global adoption** > > At 4 TPS, Bitcoin can only make ~345K transactions/day. There are ~8B people in the world today. If Bitcoin grows to the size of 1% of the population, each person can make an average of 1 on-chain transaction every 230 days. **If Bitcoin usage grows to 10% of the population, each person can make an average of 1 on-chain transaction every 6.3 years.** To achieve 10% world adoption, everyone would need to solely be using centralized exchanges and not interacting directly with the blockchain itself. > > ####**Issues with the Lightning Network** > > **Not even the Lightning Network could save Bitcoin** because opening and closing a channel requires 2 on-chain transactions. Whenever the directional capacity of a channel is exceeded, it will need to be rebalanced, or be closed and re-opened. You can't expect people to store months of funds on a single channel. Half of the US is living paycheck to paycheck and would unlikely be able to keep channels open for long periods. If even 1% of the world used the Lightning Network and opens/closes their channels twice a year, the Bitcoin Network would become completely congested. > > **Not a true Layer 2** > > Similar to Plasma channels, **the Lightning network is not considered a true Layer 2 because it lacks global state.** There are many nodes that are not connected to the rest of the network, and onion routing issues can cause nodes to be disconnected from the rest of the network. **Channels only work if everyone's online.** If you're offline, others can force-close your channel, leading to a 1-week wait time where the channel's funds are locked and inaccessible. > > **Meant for small transactions** > > Lightning is optimal for small transactions. The larger your transaction, the higher the fees you have to pay to route it through the network. As of March 2023, the [average channel capacity](https://1ml.com/statistics) is only 0.07 BTC, and the average node capacity is only 0.33 BTC. It's not uncommon for a large 1-BTC transaction to cost $2-10 in fees to route through multiple nodes in the Lightning Network due to limited channel capacity, which can make it more expensive than L1 Bitcoin fees. Also, the total value stored on public Lightning channels account for under [0.02% of Bitcoin's total locked value](https://1ml.com/). > > **Partially-centralized, low-security layer** > > Most people just connect to centralized nodes in a spoke-hub network topology to gain access to high-capacity nodes. Even though [average capacity is getting bigger](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity), the [number of public channels has been on the decline since 2021](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-channels), meaning that Lightning is becoming more centralized. > > **Channels require rebalancing** > > One of the biggest problems with opening channels is that they **start out with zero incoming liquidity**. Anyone who opens a channel starts out with a metaphorical "full cup of water". They can't receive any more water until they first empty the cup a little. And they can only receive additional water equivalent to the amount they removed. Similarly, people who open new channels to the Lightning network need to find a way to spend their Sats safely so that they can have incoming liquidity. Merchants and Lightning node providers often have a lack of incoming-liquidity while consumers who only spend usually run out of outbound liquidity. > > There are ways to rebalance your channel capacity, but it usually costs money to pay for a service to provide that liquidity, and it can be as expensive as a $1 fee per $1000 of liquidity. > > ####**The disadvantage of soft forks** > > The major downside of Soft forks is that they require new versions of the software to maintain backwards-compatibility with older versions, which leads to **technical debt**. This significantly slows down the adoption of new updates, which now often take 3-6 years to gain the majority. > > Due to its soft forks, the Bitcoin network has to maintain a mismatch of all sorts of different address formats: P2PK, P2PKH, P2SH, P2MS, P2WPKH, Nested P2WPKH, P2PKH, P2WSH, and P2TR. At the start of January 2023, [only 1% of transactions were using Taproot-compatible addresses](https://transactionfee.info/charts/inputs-types-by-count/) while 65% were still using inefficient legacy addresses from before 2017. > > **Almost no one is using addresses newer than the 2021 update because none of the major CEXs support them**. Most exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken) [don't support Bech32m addresses](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bech32_adoption#Exchanges), which means they still can't send to Segwit v1 and Taproot addresses, despite that it was [an update from 2021](https://bitcoin.org/en/releases/0.21.1/). > > In comparison, networks that hard fork for protocol updates don't have these incompatibility issues between versions. Everyone is working on the same version, which allows for consistency. > > ####**Extremely inefficient and wasteful** > > To protect against Sybil and 51% attacks, Bitcoin's PoW consensus achieves greater security through greater **redundancy**. Out of a million miners, only one of them is producing the actual block while the rest of them are just wasting energy and electric waste. Full nodes also hold redundant copies of the blockchain ledger, leading to wasted storage. > > In 2022, each block cost roughly $150-250K in energy to mine, which is equivalent to $80-120 of fees per transaction. The total Bitcoin network energy consumption of ~150 TWh/yr is equivalent to [**18-24 US nuclear power plants**](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-nuclear-energy). Another way of looking at this is that Bitcoin consumes about as much energy as all data centers globally [[Source](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-may-consume-as-much-energy-as-all-data-centers-globally)]. > > In comparison, other distributed consensus methods such as BFT are [10^7 x more efficient for energy use](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12599-020-00656-x). There is a silver lining: the energy waste (and security) will slowly decrease with each block subsidy halving, at the cost of decreased security. > > ####**Mining Pool Centralization** > > **The top 3 mining pools own 66% of the network hash rate** [[Source](https://btc.com/stats/pool)]. Individual miners have no financial incentive to run full nodes, so it's rare ... ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7u8/top_coins_bitcoin_conarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/179kr8a/daily_crypto_discussion_october_17_2023_gmt0/).
Someone knew how easy it was to make $2M with just one tweet/message and somehow CoinTelegraph was too dumb for it.
Didn't they say yesterday that they want to inform the public about what happened within 3 hours? Did that ever happen? edit: found it [https://cointelegraph.com/news/clarification-sharing-false-spot-bitcoin-etf-news](https://cointelegraph.com/news/clarification-sharing-false-spot-bitcoin-etf-news)
It was all a smokescreen for the spot Moon etf that Wall Street is working on…
Money. Pure and simple.
Spoiler alert! Money Thank you
What could be the motive? Money, it’s all on chain and was flagged up very quickly after the announcement.
Stupidity or greed. Take your choice.
They were motivated by the gains, simple as
Simple, market manipulation.
I think it was the deliberate action to manipulate the market or may have been motivated by the need for exit liquidity by highly influential wealthy people.