How can I improve our trustworthiness?

[AutoCoinCars]

Hi everyone, new to the forum. We're a business in the cryptocurrency industry. A lot of people assume we are scammers due to the nature and background of ******. However, we are fully regulated and are legally operating, we have been for almost 4 years now. What tips or advice would you suggest for us to build this trust in our brand or website?
Any help appreciated, thanks!

 

[NickGrogan]

Who are you fully regulated by?

 

[AutoCoinCars]

Who are you fully regulated by?

The FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit), covers us for ****** business across all of Europe which is where we are based

 

[The Byre]

Quite honestly, your problem is that the jokes write themselves. It's like saying "I'm a used car salesman, how do I appear trustworthy?"

The core problem is that ******-currencies are regarded by most as being of no substance and not real currencies. I cannot shop at Lidl or Aldi with a ******-currency and the recent fall in value across the board has done little to boost the image people have of cryptos.

This lack of trust has been made worse by their value dropping like a stone in the past couple of months. They are more than just volatile. They are in truth gambling. It's more like saying "How do I make 'Pink Casino' appear trustworthy?"

My answer would be to not bother - just make gambling appear to be fun! (Which is of course a con, but that's not the issue here!)

So perhaps a similar approach?

Given the coming economic storms and the looming prospect of stagflation, I cannot see volatility diminishing any time soon. You might get a boost in ******-values if/when the stock markets crash/correct - but I would not hold my breath on that one!

As for the FIU - there seem to be several. Do you mean the one within The National Crime Agency?

 

[fisicx]

The FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit), covers us for ****** business across all of Europe which is where we are based

They don't appear to be a regulatory body. it says:

The core function of an FIU is the receipt, analysis and transmitting of reports of suspicions identified and filed by the private sector.

Which is not the same as a regulatory body (like the FCA).

Ctypto by it's very nature will attract speculators and criminal rather than Joe Public.

 

[AutoCoinCars]

Quite honestly, your problem is that the jokes write themselves. It's like saying "I'm a used car salesman, how do I appear trustworthy?"

The core problem is that ******-currencies are regarded by most as being of no substance and not real currencies. I cannot shop at Lidl or Aldi with a ******-currency and the recent fall in value across the board has done little to boost the image people have of cryptos.

This lack of trust has been made worse by their value dropping like a stone in the past couple of months. They are more than just volatile. They are in truth gambling. It's more like saying "How do I make 'Pink Casino' appear trustworthy?"

My answer would be to not bother - just make gambling appear to be fun! (Which is of course a con, but that's not the issue here!)

So perhaps a similar approach?

Given the coming economic storms and the looming prospect of stagflation, I cannot see volatility diminishing any time soon. You might get a boost in ******-values if/when the stock markets crash/correct - but I would not hold my breath on that one!

As for the FIU - there seem to be several. Do you mean the one within The National Crime Agency?

Appreciate your honesty! It's definitely something we understand, we've known for years that it will be a slow and difficult path for ******, but I'm hopeful with the increase in adoption and awareness, particularly over the past year.
I like your idea of fun as opposed to trust, I'll definitely see what our marketer can come up with on this!
And yes that FIU

 

[Mark T Jones]

I'm kind of with Byre here; you are placing yourself on not one but 2 sectors with, shall we say, dubious reputations.

Stuff that can help:

- Full and clear company details on your website (that's an absolute clicher for me)
- Your link to FIU doesn't really help - it isn't even clear which country you are registered in (that in itself will be a trust thing).
- Claiming to be regulated is itself a bit ingenuous, since they aren't a regulatory body.
- Testomonials - clear, accessible & verifiable.

 

[WaveJumper]

Not sure what the FU has to do with other than they are a body set up to deal, monitor and track money laundering etc the ****** market is completely unregulated and there lies your problem

 

[The Byre]

Mark's points are spot-on!

My wild guess is that cryptos are here for the long haul, but Bitcoin will be the first to fall by the wayside. It will be the AOL of the cryptos - first out of the traps and first to fail as better alternatives that can be traded and exchanged easily will prevail.

The ideal ****** (IMO) would be instantly exchangeable with a smartphone as a blockchain unit and based on gold.

One thing is certain - the central banks everywhere are doing their level best to destroy the very currencies they are supposed to be nursing. Trust in the banking sector and governments is falling rapidly as they keep QE'ing their way out of trouble by visiting Pinocchio's Magic Money Tree (MMT).

Pounds, dollars, €uros and all that fugazi will be swept away just as soon as someone comes up with a true alternative currency that is also proper money!

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

UK video production here. We get called in all the time to create trust for businesses using video. This is what we do for customers:

1. Who do you trust more, the business selling to you or one of their customers?

Video testimonials. Not written, not a video of someone you can't find online. Rather, a customer testimonial of a real person who can be found online and has real credibility. We have to structure the testimonial in a certain way to make it absolutely 100% real otherwise it's useless.

2. Show your employees, team etc... on video. People buy from people. Show them talking, advising, educating prospects etc... Works really well.

3. Create a bitcoin marketing funnel using Google Ads.

This is video-based (surprise, surprise) and is designed to bring in the lowest-hanging fruit. i.e. People already trading in ****** who will naturally trust you and want to buy from you. Need a ton of video structured in a certain way to do this.


4. Trust by association. We bring in gold-medal winning Olympic athletes or businesspeople etc... Because people tend to trust them. A typical gold medalist is around £5k a pop for a local, relatively unknown one (e.g. cycling) through to £25k for someone a bit bigger.


Just for good measure, I'm going to ask a crazy question. Do you believe that we are amazing, can create 50 videos in a day to do all this stuff. And can create video that even teaches you about your own business? It sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Not credible at all. But how about if one of our customers says this on camera? It changes everything. Here's the example:

Sign Up | LinkedIn

500 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

www.linkedin.com

 

[Nico Albrecht]

build this trust in our brand or website?

Have a look how Paul Caslin did it with his project Doge Dash I invested within the 1st week it went life last year.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Forget the regulators and if they have any effectiveness
The first thing I find searching your user name is permanently closed on google .!

Make yourself and your company accessible to people and build trust

 

[intheTRADE]

What Jeremy said. GMB is basic stuff that should be maintained. I wouldn't even click on your website as soon as I seen 'Permently Closed'

I would also reword this paragraph especially the first sentence. I would be leaving your site instantly reading that first line. Could be phrased so much better than that

Please be aware that scammers will try to impersonate us to hack or steal your assets due to the nature of cryptocurrency. We will never ask you for personal information through social media. Stay vigilant, if you are ever in doubt, call or email our official company contact information on

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Quite honestly, your problem is that the jokes write themselves. It's like saying "I'm a used car salesman, how do I appear trustworthy?"

The core problem is that ******-currencies are regarded by most as being of no substance and not real currencies. I cannot shop at Lidl or Aldi with a ******-currency and the recent fall in value across the board has done little to boost the image people have of cryptos.

This lack of trust has been made worse by their value dropping like a stone in the past couple of months. They are more than just volatile. They are in truth gambling. It's more like saying "How do I make 'Pink Casino' appear trustworthy?"

My answer would be to not bother - just make gambling appear to be fun! (Which is of course a con, but that's not the issue here!)

So perhaps a similar approach?

Given the coming economic storms and the looming prospect of stagflation, I cannot see volatility diminishing any time soon. You might get a boost in ******-values if/when the stock markets crash/correct - but I would not hold my breath on that one!

As for the FIU - there seem to be several. Do you mean the one within The National Crime Agency?

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Just to but my ****** pennies worth in here. I am no ****** Expert and I am sure AutoCoinCars knows far more about this than I but the latest crash that you speak of was just a fairly standard price correction which happens periodically in ******. Yes it was hit harder due to a few recent financial and political events but what you failed to mention in your post is that since the so called "****** Crash" the likes of Ethereum are already back up by nearly 50%. There is no doubting that ****** is volatile but no investment is stable. It is unfortunately misinformation that perpetuates the distrust in ******. There is no doubting ****** has a future, it has been around since 2009 so it's not exactly a new craze. I personally have investments in Stocks and ****** which I have held for a similar amount of time, all I can say is my stocks are just about up over 3 years and my ****** is up by over 400%. I feel people need to start paying more attention to ******.

 

[The Byre]

Here are some basic facts about all ****** 'currencies' -

I cannot take them into a shop and buy goods with them. They fail therefore to fulfill the very fundamental task of a currency and therefore cannot be regarded as currencies.

As they are not commodity currencies or representative currencies and cannot be regarded as fiat currencies because Lidl and Tesco do not accept them, we must ask ourselves - what are they?

The obvious answer would be 'Tokens of perceived value.' That begs the question 'Perceived by whom? Value for whom?' What makes a BitCoin that once cost a few cents worth tens of thousands of dollars?

The obvious answer is 'Demand'. But demand by whom?

If we look at the ****** marketplace, we discover some strange phenomena - BitCoin may be valued at $44,000 today, but there is almost no trading going on. With the prices so crazily volatile, one would normally expect great transfers to be taking place and waves of BitCoin washing over the market.

But no such thing is happening! Those who have BitCoin are holding them, expecting values to increase even further. In any one day, only about 1% are traded. A year ago, that was just 2%. For a token of value that can gain or lose 50% in just one week, that is a clear sign of a small number of swing-trades and everyone else holding.

Holders of BitCoin are indeed appearing on CNBC and Bloomberg and in thousands of YT videos, hyping the market, but they are yet to realise their nominal wealth and if they did, just imagine what they would do to the price!

With just 1% moving the market to crazy levels, a melt-up-and-crash cycle is almost inevitable. That is when a fugazi stock such as some silly dot-com dufus thing gets a great write-up or is hyped and all sorts of naive people pile in, sending the price sky-high. They then all try to sell and the price crashes and the company goes mammary-glands-up.

I am not saying that it will happen, but the danger of a melt-up is very, very real.

And not just the cryptos either. The world's stock and bond markets are largely based on margin accounts (money is just too cheap!) and PE ratios are bonkers high. If the markets think that the Fed is not going to stop QE and tighten the money supply, we could easily get a melt-up frenzy, followed by a correction and that is when the banks start making those margin calls and then everything has to be sold to cover losses.

 

[WaveJumper]

Here are some basic facts about all ****** 'currencies' -

I cannot take them into a shop and buy goods with them. They fail therefore to fulfill the very fundamental task of a currency and therefore cannot be regarded as currencies.

As they are not commodity currencies or representative currencies and cannot be regarded as fiat currencies because Lidl and Tesco do not accept them, we must ask ourselves - what are they?

The obvious answer would be 'Tokens of perceived value.' That begs the question 'Perceived by whom? Value for whom?' What makes a BitCoin that once cost a few cents worth tens of thousands of dollars?

The obvious answer is 'Demand'. But demand by whom?

If we look at the ****** marketplace, we discover some strange phenomena - BitCoin may be valued at $44,000 today, but there is almost no trading going on. With the prices so crazily volatile, one would normally expect great transfers to be taking place and waves of BitCoin washing over the market.

But no such thing is happening! Those who have BitCoin are holding them, expecting values to increase even further. In any one day, only about 1% are traded. A year ago, that was just 2%. For a token of value that can gain or lose 50% in just one week, that is a clear sign of a small number of swing-trades and everyone else holding.

Holders of BitCoin are indeed appearing on CNBC and Bloomberg and in thousands of YT videos, hyping the market, but they are yet to realise their nominal wealth and if they did, just imagine what they would do to the price!

With just 1% moving the market to crazy levels, a melt-up-and-crash cycle is almost inevitable. That is when a fugazi stock such as some silly dot-com dufus thing gets a great write-up or is hyped and all sorts of naive people pile in, sending the price sky-high. They then all try to sell and the price crashes and the company goes mammary-glands-up.

I am not saying that it will happen, but the danger of a melt-up is very, very real.

And not just the cryptos either. The world's stock and bond markets are largely based on margin accounts (money is just too cheap!) and PE ratios are bonkers high. If the markets think that the Fed is not going to stop QE and tighten the money supply, we could easily get a melt-up frenzy, followed by a correction and that is when the banks start making those margin calls and then everything has to be sold to cover losses.

And just to add to this since @The Byre posted this Bitcoin is down 1.57%

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Here are some basic facts about all ****** 'currencies' -

I cannot take them into a shop and buy goods with them. They fail therefore to fulfill the very fundamental task of a currency and therefore cannot be regarded as currencies.

As they are not commodity currencies or representative currencies and cannot be regarded as fiat currencies because Lidl and Tesco do not accept them, we must ask ourselves - what are they?

The obvious answer would be 'Tokens of perceived value.' That begs the question 'Perceived by whom? Value for whom?' What makes a BitCoin that once cost a few cents worth tens of thousands of dollars?

The obvious answer is 'Demand'. But demand by whom?

If we look at the ****** marketplace, we discover some strange phenomena - BitCoin may be valued at $44,000 today, but there is almost no trading going on. With the prices so crazily volatile, one would normally expect great transfers to be taking place and waves of BitCoin washing over the market.

But no such thing is happening! Those who have BitCoin are holding them, expecting values to increase even further. In any one day, only about 1% are traded. A year ago, that was just 2%. For a token of value that can gain or lose 50% in just one week, that is a clear sign of a small number of swing-trades and everyone else holding.

Holders of BitCoin are indeed appearing on CNBC and Bloomberg and in thousands of YT videos, hyping the market, but they are yet to realise their nominal wealth and if they did, just imagine what they would do to the price!

With just 1% moving the market to crazy levels, a melt-up-and-crash cycle is almost inevitable. That is when a fugazi stock such as some silly dot-com dufus thing gets a great write-up or is hyped and all sorts of naive people pile in, sending the price sky-high. They then all try to sell and the price crashes and the company goes mammary-glands-up.

I am not saying that it will happen, but the danger of a melt-up is very, very real.

And not just the cryptos either. The world's stock and bond markets are largely based on margin accounts (money is just too cheap!) and PE ratios are bonkers high. If the markets think that the Fed is not going to stop QE and tighten the money supply, we could easily get a melt-up frenzy, followed by a correction and that is when the banks start making those margin calls and then everything has to be sold to cover losses.

I don't follow your "argument/opinion" at all. First of all your comments about not being able to take ****** into Lidl or Tesco. You can't take Stocks or Shares into lidl or Tesco or many other monetary mediums. So I do not understand how that comments goes strictly against ******. People are not getting into ****** to buy beans from lidl, in the same way people do not get into stocks and shares to buy beans from lidl.

The second thing is surely absolutely anything to do with finance or trade is based on perceived value? Who decides that Gold is worth what it is? or a painting by Picasso? or the price of a companies stocks? or even the can of beans you buy from lidl. Going back to the dawn of time when someone thought their rice crop was worth a goat and 3 chickens, it all comes back to perceived value.

Take diamonds for example. People for years have paid extortionate amount for diamonds due to their perceived value, where truth be told Russia stock hold enough diamonds that if they released them all it would make diamonds worth next to nothing.

Once again, I am complete agreement that ****** is incredibly volatile and not a sure fire way to become a millionaire by any stretch but there is absolutely no reason why ****** shouldn't be valued any more or less that Gold, Stocks, Fine Art or anything else that someone might invest in.

What I am trying to get at is our friend at AutoCoinCars should get the same trust as any other investment opportunity or commodities service.

It's all healthy conversation though. I enjoy hearing all point of views.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Here are some basic facts about all ****** 'currencies' -

I cannot take them into a shop and buy goods with them. They fail therefore to fulfill the very fundamental task of a currency and therefore cannot be regarded as currencies.

As they are not commodity currencies or representative currencies and cannot be regarded as fiat currencies because Lidl and Tesco do not accept them, we must ask ourselves - what are they?

The obvious answer would be 'Tokens of perceived value.' That begs the question 'Perceived by whom? Value for whom?' What makes a BitCoin that once cost a few cents worth tens of thousands of dollars?

The obvious answer is 'Demand'. But demand by whom?

If we look at the ****** marketplace, we discover some strange phenomena - BitCoin may be valued at $44,000 today, but there is almost no trading going on. With the prices so crazily volatile, one would normally expect great transfers to be taking place and waves of BitCoin washing over the market.

But no such thing is happening! Those who have BitCoin are holding them, expecting values to increase even further. In any one day, only about 1% are traded. A year ago, that was just 2%. For a token of value that can gain or lose 50% in just one week, that is a clear sign of a small number of swing-trades and everyone else holding.

Holders of BitCoin are indeed appearing on CNBC and Bloomberg and in thousands of YT videos, hyping the market, but they are yet to realise their nominal wealth and if they did, just imagine what they would do to the price!

With just 1% moving the market to crazy levels, a melt-up-and-crash cycle is almost inevitable. That is when a fugazi stock such as some silly dot-com dufus thing gets a great write-up or is hyped and all sorts of naive people pile in, sending the price sky-high. They then all try to sell and the price crashes and the company goes mammary-glands-up.

I am not saying that it will happen, but the danger of a melt-up is very, very real.

And not just the cryptos either. The world's stock and bond markets are largely based on margin accounts (money is just too cheap!) and PE ratios are bonkers high. If the markets think that the Fed is not going to stop QE and tighten the money supply, we could easily get a melt-up frenzy, followed by a correction and that is when the banks start making those margin calls and then everything has to be sold to cover losses.

For reference and to show I am here for decent conversation, I am very much in agreement with your final statement.... "
I am not saying that it will happen, but the danger of a melt-up is very, very real.

And not just the cryptos either. The world's stock and bond markets are largely based on margin accounts (money is just too cheap!) and PE ratios are bonkers high. If the markets think that the Fed is not going to stop QE and tighten the money supply, we could easily get a melt-up frenzy, followed by a correction and that is when the banks start making those margin calls and then everything has to be sold to cover losses."

All investments are volatile but I believe for now especially the likes of Ethereum have got a huge place in our futures especially with the likes of a METAverse becoming more of a scary reality. Don't get me wrong, I am not buying into the whole META thing at all, I am no even really a huge fan or social media but there is doubt it is the way things are going and that is when ****** will come into a life of it's own.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I

The second thing is surely absolutely anything to do with finance or trade is based on perceived value? Who decides that Gold is worth what it is? or a painting by Picasso? or the price of a companies stocks? or even the can of beans you buy from lidl. Going back to the dawn of time when someone thought their rice crop was worth a goat and 3 chickens, it all comes back to perceived value.

Take diamonds for example. People for years have paid extortionate amount for diamonds due to their perceived value, where truth be told Russia stock hold enough diamonds that if they released them all it would make diamonds worth next to nothing.


It's all healthy conversation though. I enjoy hearing all point of views.

This is the kind of twaddle churned out by Facebook experts - presumably instigated by clever people, who know how to manipulate markets.

I most love the fact that somebody went to the effort of making a video which 'proved' that Bitcoin was the same as gold; whilst conveniently overlooking a few key points.

The most key point being that gold and diamonds were initially valued for their use as a key component of products - such as jewellery, ornaments and artefacts. Or, to put more simply, they were pretty and useful. The only reason anybody is owns ****** is blind faith that it will go up in value. (except the afore-mentioned clever ones, who will make money from it either way).

Also, most people lost money - and many lives - in the gold rush. As the saying goes; the ones who made money were those selling shovels.

Reality - ****** could well have a future as online trading tokens. But that can't happen until it's value becomes clear. And it's anyone's guess which ******(s) will win.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

And just to add to this since @The Byre posted this Bitcoin is down 1.57%

How about the stock markets? I just checked my stock portfolio and some of my stocks had similar movements in that timeframe.

This is where I do agree with The Byre. The investment/financial sector as a whole is volatile as anything at the moment. It is not a true reflection to just make statements about ****** like it is the only thing that fluctuates.

 

[The Byre]

I don't follow your "argument/opinion" at all. First of all your comments about not being able to take ****** into Lidl or Tesco. You can't take Stocks or Shares into lidl or Tesco or many other monetary mediums. So I do not understand how that comments goes strictly against ******. People are not getting into ****** to buy beans from lidl, in the same way people do not get into stocks and shares to buy beans from lidl.

Just as long as you are clear that Cryptos are not universally acceptable units of exchange, which is the definition of a currency. They cannot, therefore, be called currencies. Neither of course are shares and therefore are not 'monetary' anything. They are merely certificates of ownership similar to the deeds to a house.

I listed three types of currency - commodity currency such as gold coins or even cigarettes in a prison. Then representative currencies such as the dollar until 1971, when a dollar could be exchanged at any US bank for the amount of gold it represented. In 1971, the US left the gold standard and the dollar became a fiat currency, i.e. a currency based on belief only.

The second thing is surely absolutely anything to do with finance or trade is based on perceived value? Who decides that Gold is worth what it is? or a painting by Picasso? or the price of a companies stocks? or even the can of beans you buy from lidl.

The market decides.

there is absolutely no reason why ****** shouldn't be valued any more or less that Gold, Stocks, Fine Art or anything else that someone might invest in.

Except they have no intrinsic value. We need gold for all kinds of industrial applications such as electronic contacts and switches and gold and silver is used in large amounts for all those milk floats we are supposed to buy. Shares also have intrinsic value as representations of company ownership. For example, my company owns buildings and makes profits. Those are things of real value. Paintings and other pieces of art are also physical things. One may think occasionally that they are overpriced, but that is because they are both rare and beautiful.

I have paintings all over the house - some are just dufus things that took my fancy and I got them on eBay, others are done by artists with long write-ups in Wikipedia. Some are worthless but fun to look at and some are valuable in monetary terms. But they are all tangible things.

One might argue that fiat currencies such as the pound, the €uro, or the dollar are also ******-currencies as they also have no intrinsic value and are almost always traded digitally - and I for one would not disagree. The reason we are experiencing inflation is because central banks everywhere have been creating new units of exchange out of thin air in that insidious process called quantitative easing.

They have been doing this in fits and starts since we came off the gold standard, but lately, it has been a 'Get out of Jail Free!' card, so that governments could pay their bills and hand out free money in the form of BBLs, grants and 'stimmy' cheques - helicopter money! Because it takes about two years for QE money to move from the banking system into assets and then into the real economy, that is why inflation is now starting to bite. And the worst is probably yet to come!

The concept (IMO) of a blockchain acting as a unit of exchange is a good one, but the concept of a fiat currency is one that is not standing up in the good old test of time. Inflation is an indirect, yet very, very effective tax on the poor. For that reason, we should (again in my opinion!) go back to a representative currency, i.e. the gold standard.

And a ****** based on gold would be the ideal solution.

A house in Horsham, Sussex sold for £750 in 1955. That was two years of average net wages back then. I saw the same house for sale last year for £750,000. That is 25 years of average net wages today. In real terms, owning a nice house with a big garden in a desirable area has moved from the attainable for an ordinary working family, to the nearly totally unattainable.

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

A gold-based ****** free from interference by governments and central bankers would stop that nonsense!

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

This is the kind of twaddle churned out by Facebook experts - presumably instigated by clever people, who know how to manipulate markets.

I most love the fact that somebody went to the effort of making a video which 'proved' that Bitcoin was the same as gold; whilst conveniently overlooking a few key points.

The most key point being that gold and diamonds were initially valued for their use as a key component of products - such as jewellery, ornaments and artefacts. Or, to put more simply, they were pretty and useful. The only reason anybody is owns ****** is blind faith that it will go up in value. (except the afore-mentioned clever ones, who will make money from it either way).

Also, most people lost money - and many lives - in the gold rush. As the saying goes; the ones who made money were those selling shovels.

Reality - ****** could well have a future as online trading tokens. But that can't happen until it's value becomes clear. And it's anyone's guess which ******(s) will win.

It is comments like, "this kind of twaddle" that puts stop to healthy debate. I have challenged options in my posts but I have not been disrespectful at any point. Again your comment about the comparison between Bitcoin and Gold is misleading. The only comparison is that due to the fact there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in circulation so it is seen as a "precious commodity" in a similar way that unless something extreme happens Gold is never going to be mined in mass volume. Therefore Bitcoin will react in a similar way to Gold and that goes for the instability factor too. I like to point out that I completely agree that there could come a day when people say, "what is all this Bitcoin business about" and the price plummets. Only in a similar way that Gold could massively fall out of favour with people because they don't like shiny things anymore.

I am a strong believer that a lot of the more obscure ****** coins will just fizzle out because they are very much a craze but the likes of Ethereum which is so much more than a "coin" and more of a platform could play a huge part in future technologies. This is when they could become just as stable as a Google, Apple or Microsoft are on the stock market.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Just as long as you are clear that Cryptos are not universally acceptable units of exchange, which is the definition of a currency. They cannot, therefore, be called currencies. Neither of course are shares and therefore are not 'monetary' anything. They are merely certificates of ownership similar to the deeds to a house.

I listed three types of currency - commodity currency such as gold coins or even cigarettes in a prison. Then representative currencies such as the dollar until 1971, when a dollar could be exchanged at any US bank for the amount of gold it represented. In 1971, the US left the gold standard and the dollar became a fiat currency, i.e. a currency based on belief only.

The market decides.

Except they have no intrinsic value. We need gold for all kinds of industrial applications such as electronic contacts and switches and gold and silver is used in large amounts for all those milk floats we are supposed to buy. Shares also have intrinsic value as representations of company ownership. For example, my company owns buildings and makes profits. Those are things of real value. Paintings and other pieces of art are also physical things. One may think occasionally that they are overpriced, but that is because they are both rare and beautiful.

I have paintings all over the house - some are just dufus things that took my fancy and I got them on eBay, others are done by artists with long write-ups in Wikipedia. Some are worthless but fun to look at and some are valuable in monetary terms. But they are all tangible things.

One might argue that fiat currencies such as the pound, the €uro, or the dollar are also ******-currencies as they also have no intrinsic value and are almost always traded digitally - and I for one would not disagree. The reason we are experiencing inflation is because central banks everywhere have been creating new units of exchange out of thin air in that insidious process called quantitative easing.

They have been doing this in fits and starts since we came off the gold standard, but lately, it has been a 'Get out of Jail Free!' card, so that governments could pay their bills and hand out free money in the form of BBLs, grants and 'stimmy' cheques - helicopter money! Because it takes about two years for QE money to move from the banking system into assets and then into the real economy, that is why inflation is now starting to bite. And the worst is probably yet to come!

The concept (IMO) of a blockchain acting as a unit of exchange is a good one, but the concept of a fiat currency is one that is not standing up in the good old test of time. Inflation is an indirect, yet very, very effective tax on the poor. For that reason, we should (again in my opinion!) go back to a representative currency, i.e. the gold standard.

And a ****** based on gold would be the ideal solution.

A house in Horsham, Sussex sold for £750 in 1955. That was two years of average net wages back then. I saw the same house for sale last year for £750,000. That is 25 years of average net wages today. In real terms, owning a nice house with a big garden in a desirable area has moved from the attainable for an ordinary working family, to the nearly totally unattainable.

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

A gold-based ****** free from interference by governments and central bankers would stop that nonsense!

That was an informative read and I appreciate the way you're actually engaging in the conversation. Thanks @Thebyre There are definitely still a few agree to disagree aspects but overall I'm interested in the points you've put across.

For now. Evening all!

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Just as long as you are clear that Cryptos are not universally acceptable units of exchange, which is the definition of a currency. They cannot, therefore, be called currencies. Neither of course are shares and therefore are not 'monetary' anything. They are merely certificates of ownership similar to the deeds to a house.

I listed three types of currency - commodity currency such as gold coins or even cigarettes in a prison. Then representative currencies such as the dollar until 1971, when a dollar could be exchanged at any US bank for the amount of gold it represented. In 1971, the US left the gold standard and the dollar became a fiat currency, i.e. a currency based on belief only.

The market decides.

Except they have no intrinsic value. We need gold for all kinds of industrial applications such as electronic contacts and switches and gold and silver is used in large amounts for all those milk floats we are supposed to buy. Shares also have intrinsic value as representations of company ownership. For example, my company owns buildings and makes profits. Those are things of real value. Paintings and other pieces of art are also physical things. One may think occasionally that they are overpriced, but that is because they are both rare and beautiful.

I have paintings all over the house - some are just dufus things that took my fancy and I got them on eBay, others are done by artists with long write-ups in Wikipedia. Some are worthless but fun to look at and some are valuable in monetary terms. But they are all tangible things.

One might argue that fiat currencies such as the pound, the €uro, or the dollar are also ******-currencies as they also have no intrinsic value and are almost always traded digitally - and I for one would not disagree. The reason we are experiencing inflation is because central banks everywhere have been creating new units of exchange out of thin air in that insidious process called quantitative easing.

They have been doing this in fits and starts since we came off the gold standard, but lately, it has been a 'Get out of Jail Free!' card, so that governments could pay their bills and hand out free money in the form of BBLs, grants and 'stimmy' cheques - helicopter money! Because it takes about two years for QE money to move from the banking system into assets and then into the real economy, that is why inflation is now starting to bite. And the worst is probably yet to come!

The concept (IMO) of a blockchain acting as a unit of exchange is a good one, but the concept of a fiat currency is one that is not standing up in the good old test of time. Inflation is an indirect, yet very, very effective tax on the poor. For that reason, we should (again in my opinion!) go back to a representative currency, i.e. the gold standard.

And a ****** based on gold would be the ideal solution.

A house in Horsham, Sussex sold for £750 in 1955. That was two years of average net wages back then. I saw the same house for sale last year for £750,000. That is 25 years of average net wages today. In real terms, owning a nice house with a big garden in a desirable area has moved from the attainable for an ordinary working family, to the nearly totally unattainable.

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

A gold-based ****** free from interference by governments and central bankers would stop that nonsens
A house in Horsham, Sussex sold for £750 in 1955. That was two years of average net wages back then. I saw the same house for sale last year for £750,000. That is 25 years of average net wages today. In real terms, owning a nice house with a big garden in a desirable area has moved from the attainable for an ordinary working family, to the nearly totally unattainable.

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

A gold-based ****** free from interference by governments and central bankers would stop that nonsense!
e!

"A house in Horsham, Sussex sold for £750 in 1955. That was two years of average net wages back then. I saw the same house for sale last year for £750,000. That is 25 years of average net wages today. In real terms, owning a nice house with a big garden in a desirable area has moved from the attainable for an ordinary working family, to the nearly totally unattainable.

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

A gold-based ****** free from interference by governments and central bankers would stop that nonsense!"

This is in particular is very interesting point. I have experienced this first hand very recently. I am in the horrible situation of having to deal with my God Mothers estate as she is in end of life case. She brought her house in Derby around 50 years ago for £27,000, a recent valuation has put it at just a shade of £300,000. In other circumstances this would have been an incredible investment for her but going back to your point it does make it totally unattainable for the majority of people to buy now.

 

[bodgitt&scarperLTD]

It is comments like, "this kind of twaddle" that puts stop to healthy debate. I have challenged options in my posts but I have not been disrespectful at any point. Again your comment about the comparison between Bitcoin and Gold is misleading. The only comparison is that due to the fact there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in circulation so it is seen as a "precious commodity" in a similar way that unless something extreme happens Gold is never going to be mined in mass volume. Therefore Bitcoin will react in a similar way to Gold and that goes for the instability factor too. I like to point out that I completely agree that there could come a day when people say, "what is all this Bitcoin business about" and the price plummets. Only in a similar way that Gold could massively fall out of favour with people because they don't like shiny things anymore.

There will only every be XX million of any other crytpo that someone else writes the code for with those parameters too. So that's a daft reason to use to push Bitcoin.

But not half as daft as saying that gold will fall our of favour because people don't like shiny things. Gold's value is not just from it's rarity- it has great utilitarian value from it's uses as an industrial metal, widely used inside things such as that smartphone you are trading Bitcoin from. Bitcoin has no other uses whatsoever. Even in a sharp market downturn, we still need gold.

And another thing- once gold is mined, it doesn't require vast amounts of energy in order to be traded either.

 

[Mark T Jones]

It is comments like, "this kind of twaddle" that puts stop to healthy debate.

Sorry, but it is twaddle.

Whilst I appreciate you aren't here to sell or promote anything, it is mostly used to encourage niave and gullible people to invest - hence I will always call it out as such.

In the context of theopening question, it definitely won't improve credibility.

 

[The Byre]

The problem with ALL currencies or other tokens of value is that sooner or later, someone finds a way to increase the supply in order to enrich themselves.

This has happened to ALL fiat currencies, it happens to shares when ownership is diluted by the issuance of new shares and despite all the protestations to the contrary, it will happen to every ******. It's just a matter of time!

The difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have things. The poor have tokens. The rich turn their tokens into things. The poor hoard their tokens and even give them to the rich in the vainglorious hope that the rich will somehow make those tokens grow in Ponzi schemes known as pension funds or growth funds or some such hogwash.

If you want to get rich, turn all your tokens into things that are real - and I do not mean shiny new cars, a new yacht, or a young wife who spends £37,000 on vulgar wallpaper. Land, gold, silver, or just tools you can use to earn more tokens that you can turn into land or gold.

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

There is a misconception that Bitcoin lacks intrinsic value. This is incorrect according to a bloke I worked for over a 5 year period (before I started my video production business). If I parrot what was said:

Bitcoin's intrinsic value is that it allows access to an underground market. i.e. Drugs, guns and money laundering. I know people who buy drugs using bitcoin in the UK and they swear by it. Similarly, if someone wanted to launder a large amount of money, bitcoin is outside HMRC's visibility so a pretend 'bitcoin mining' operation or claiming to make a ton of money in digital currencies is a great way for large amounts of money to suddenly appear in someone's hands.

A friend of mine worked at a Swiss bank in wealth management. When he came out, he decided to create a wealth management business and one drunken evening, he told me outright what he charges for laundering money. The number was eye watering. We're all in the wrong business. Except maybe my divorce lawyer and ex-wife.

This ability to perform illegal activity is extremely valuable and this is what started bitcoin off.

 

[MBE2017]

Not an expert on ****** currencies by any means, but as a layman this is my viewpoint.

******’s have no real value, other than hoping another fool is willing to buy yours for more than you did. It does nothing and has no real intrinsic asset value. The easiest thing to compare them too, the time the Dutch used to sell their houses to get a tulip bulb, all such crazy schemes with perceived values will ultimately fail.

How long it takes to crash is for history to record, in the meantime, there is some good money to be made whilst others are willing to buy your token/coin.

Warren Buffet has the same view, is the worlds most successful investor, and with all his years experience I reckon he knows what he is on about. Blockchain technology will be valuable in the future though I am told, but I don’t know anything about it personally.

 

[Mark T Jones]

******’s have no real value, other than hoping another fool is willing to buy yours for more than you did. It does nothing and has no real intrinsic asset value.

I think that's a little unfair.

These fools do exist; so do the other sort of fools, who have no intention of selling; becuase they ave been 'reliably' informed that it will keep on rising forever.

Meanwhile there are those in the middle who are making good money, by getting these fools to believe that Bitcoin is the same as gold.

 

[Alan]

I cannot take them into a shop

What is a shop?

 

[Alan]

Lidl and Tesco do not accept them, we must ask ourselves - what are they?

Tesco and Lidl ( in the UK ) don't accept USD, Euro, Yen etc - but you can actually buy Tesco gift vouchers using BTC

 

[Alan]

By printing money, the BoE and the government have reduced a person's yearly wages from half a house to just one-twenty-fifth of a house.

No where near as simple as that. And probably has more to do about relatively fixed supply whilst the costs of virtually everything else has gone down through technology driving efficiencies. So in 1955 the average salary probably had only 5% spare to spend on financing a home, whereas today perhaps have 50% spare to finance a home - this is just examples and teh maths doesn't work exactly but to illustrate a point.

Another question to ask - in 1955 what was the normal repayment period for a mortgage? In think you will find that was 25 years, as it is today.

Or put another way, printing money just changes the absolute number - not the relative costs. ( obviously that has a side benefit for people / businesses with debts )

 

[The Byre]

printing money just changes the absolute number - not the relative costs. ( obviously that has a side benefit for people / businesses with debts )

That is fundamentally wrong and sounds suspiciously like some of the stuff the few remaining devotees of Monder Monetary Theory (MMT - The Magic Money Tree) come up with.

QE is a hefty stealth tax on the poor and the middle classes, as they are dependent on a fixed and steady income and therefore on the value of money remaining constant. The wealthy have assets, i.e. real things. Houses, land and other equity.

The wage-earner (or benefits recipient) finds that their money buys less and less because money is losing its value.

As long as MV = PY (money supply times velocity equals prices times the volume of goods and services) then QE must lead to inflation. If MMT were in any way a valid theory, then that tried and tested equation would not be true. Also if MMT were a thing, then all this QE would not be feeding inflation.

Ever since we came off the gold standard, governments and their central banks have not been able to resist the temptation of increasing the money supply to pay their way instead of raising taxes or reducing costs. Governments everywhere are unbelievably wasteful. 60,000 civil servants at the MoD. Probably near to £100bn poured needlessly into test-n-trace and PPE schemes that went nowhere. Grants to people like me that didn't need it. Stimmy cheques to every US citizen.

And all that was freshly printed helicopter money!

The UK government accounted for 35% of GDP in FY 2019-2020 (and 35% has historically proven to be the upper ceiling for government spending before the economy begins to shrink). For FY 20-21 that had shot up to 53%. Similar madness gripped the ECB and the Fed and their associated governments.

(The joke doing the rounds in economist circles was "Why raise taxes at all when most government spending is now QE? Why not just print it all and be done with it?")

Yes, there have been supply-chain issues, but they were nearly all created by government policies and had little to do with C19. We are not short of gas and oil here and in the US because the oil fields caught a cold, but because governments refused to license fresh drilling. Results - farming inputs up by 22%, general manufacturing inputs up by 14%. And rising!

It takes about two years for QE to move from the central bank to the banks and from there to asset prices and from there to the real economy and thereby feed inflation - so what you are seeing now is just the beginning! The banks started QE in the tail-end of 2019 (so nothing to do with C19) to cover their arses in the repo shortfalls and then added to it in 2020 to bail out governments for their C19 largesse.

whilst the costs of virtually everything else has gone down through technology driving efficiencies.

That bit is true. In times of honest money, efficiencies and new technology does bring prices down. The natural order of things is deflation and rising standards of living for the poor and middle classes.

And not inflation.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

There will only every be XX million of any other crytpo that someone else writes the code for with those parameters too. So that's a daft reason to use to push Bitcoin.

But not half as daft as saying that gold will fall our of favour because people don't like shiny things. Gold's value is not just from it's rarity- it has great utilitarian value from it's uses as an industrial metal, widely used inside things such as that smartphone you are trading Bitcoin from. Bitcoin has no other uses whatsoever. Even in a sharp market downturn, we still need gold.

And another thing- once gold is mined, it doesn't require vast amounts of energy in order to be traded either.

Can you please highlight at what point in my posts I have mentioned that I push Bitcoin or that I trade Bitcoin. If anything my posts have actually agreed that I do believe that Bitcoin doesn't necessarily have the legs for the future. The only ****** I actually hold is Ethereum and that is because it is more than just a coin and could actually have practical uses within technologies moving forward.

Also my comment about people not wanting shiny things any more when referring to Gold was power phrasing another post so I was massively simplifying the matter.

Thank you for taking the time to wade in though when you clearly haven't read the posts around the conversation.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

Sorry, but it is twaddle.

Whilst I appreciate you aren't here to sell or promote anything, it is mostly used to encourage niave and gullible people to invest - hence I will always call it out as such.

In the context of theopening question, it definitely won't improve credibility.

I fully respect your response and opinions. As you say, I am not here to sell or promote anything ****** at all, I am merely here to the healthy debate and to learn.

I work in eCommerce fulfilment to my pay packets are very much paid by the trading of physical goods, nothing to do with ******. I just have a personal interest that's all.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

The problem with ALL currencies or other tokens of value is that sooner or later, someone finds a way to increase the supply in order to enrich themselves.

This has happened to ALL fiat currencies, it happens to shares when ownership is diluted by the issuance of new shares and despite all the protestations to the contrary, it will happen to every ******. It's just a matter of time!

The difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have things. The poor have tokens. The rich turn their tokens into things. The poor hoard their tokens and even give them to the rich in the vainglorious hope that the rich will somehow make those tokens grow in Ponzi schemes known as pension funds or growth funds or some such hogwash.

If you want to get rich, turn all your tokens into things that are real - and I do not mean shiny new cars, a new yacht, or a young wife who spends £37,000 on vulgar wallpaper. Land, gold, silver, or just tools you can use to earn more tokens that you can turn into land or gold.

Now that is a post I can get behind. Especially towards the end. Well said.

 

[The Byre]

For what it is worth, Bitcoin has steadied significantly and is at $30k right now and seems to be either finding a floor at $25k or at least testing the bottom at that price.

Governments and their pet bankers (rhyming slang?) are losing control by running up debts that cannot ever be repaid and inflation is making their main method of control (currencies) ever-weaker.

As things stand, governments are running scared from all those things that are taking the levers of power away from them. That includes cryptos, as well as the entire internet, social media, YouTube and of course all kinds of physical new technologies - but mostly it is everything online and digital.

Example - Canada. That supreme prat Trudeau has invoked The Emergency Powers Act and reclassified the protesting truckers as terrorists so that they may not receive crowdfunding. So they are switching to Bitcoin. So in his infinite wisdom, His Supreme Pratness has said that he will confiscate Bitcoin transfers as well.

Oh yer? How?

The very fact that cryptos are totally away from any government monitoring or control makes them begin to look quite positive in my eyes.

Governments will of course try to introduce their own digital currencies almost everywhere in a last-ditch effort to hang onto power and the control of money.

 

[Your 3PL Guy]

That is fundamentally wrong and sounds suspiciously like some of the stuff the few remaining devotees of Monder Monetary Theory (MMT - The Magic Money Tree) come up with.

QE is a hefty stealth tax on the poor and the middle classes, as they are dependent on a fixed and steady income and therefore on the value of money remaining constant. The wealthy have assets, i.e. real things. Houses, land and other equity.

The wage-earner (or benefits recipient) finds that their money buys less and less because money is losing its value.

As long as MV = PY (money supply times velocity equals prices times the volume of goods and services) then QE must lead to inflation. If MMT were in any way a valid theory, then that tried and tested equation would not be true. Also if MMT were a thing, then all this QE would not be feeding inflation.

Ever since we came off the gold standard, governments and their central banks have not been able to resist the temptation of increasing the money supply to pay their way instead of raising taxes or reducing costs. Governments everywhere are unbelievably wasteful. 60,000 civil servants at the MoD. Probably near to £100bn poured needlessly into test-n-trace and PPE schemes that went nowhere. Grants to people like me that didn't need it. Stimmy cheques to every US citizen.

And all that was freshly printed helicopter money!

The UK government accounted for 35% of GDP in FY 2019-2020 (and 35% has historically proven to be the upper ceiling for government spending before the economy begins to shrink). For FY 20-21 that had shot up to 53%. Similar madness gripped the ECB and the Fed and their associated governments.

(The joke doing the rounds in economist circles was "Why raise taxes at all when most government spending is now QE? Why not just print it all and be done with it?")

Yes, there have been supply-chain issues, but they were nearly all created by government policies and had little to do with C19. We are not short of gas and oil here and in the US because the oil fields caught a cold, but because governments refused to license fresh drilling. Results - farming inputs up by 22%, general manufacturing inputs up by 14%. And rising!

It takes about two years for QE to move from the central bank to the banks and from there to asset prices and from there to the real economy and thereby feed inflation - so what you are seeing now is just the beginning! The banks started QE in the tail-end of 2019 (so nothing to do with C19) to cover their arses in the repo shortfalls and then added to it in 2020 to bail out governments for their C19 largesse.

That bit is true. In times of honest money, efficiencies and new technology does bring prices down. The natural order of things is deflation and rising standards of living for the poor and middle classes.

And not inflation.

This is exactly why I am pleased I engage in these conversations. We may not have agreed on our initial posts and likely a few things we're still not eye to eye on but that is fine. This post was genuinely fascinating to read and very insightful.