A story of two start ups

This story is based on true events (references at bottom), detailing how two start ups revolutionized an industry.

Modernizing Retro

In 2008, a vintage photography enthusiast named Lucas had an idea for a mobile app that would revolutionize the industry. You see, vintage photography was an expensive hobby and the entire system was archaic, full of middlemen, and primed to be modernized.

In order to get into the hobby and share your photographs with your friends and family, you had to

1. Acquire a vintage camera from a pawn shop or eBay
2. Find and purchase the correct film for your camera model
3. Learn how to use the camera and take a photo
4. Bring the film to a photo lab and pay a fee to have it developed

The brilliant idea Lucas had was to take advantage of recently released iPhone and its camera capabilities. A series of filters (with catchy names like Blanko and Valencia) could be applied to digital photos after the fact to create the effect of a vintage photo, streamlining the entire process into just a single press of a button.

Lucas got to work creating an app that would do just that and bit by bit, word spread. Friends were amazed by the nostalgia of seeing these vintage photographs and the ease at which these they can be taken. Folks in the business were apprehensive at first but soon began looking for partnerships and embracing the inevitable revolution of their industry. Before long, Lucas' app was at the top of the App Store and would eventually garner millions of users.

The name of this app was.... Hipstamatic.

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A new challenger

The success of Hipstamatic spawned a slew of copycat apps hoping to replicate its success but none were able to overcome Hipstamatic's first mover advantage and brand recognition. That is, until the launch of a new challenger a few years later... Instagram.

Instagram's early success was due to its focus on doing one thing and doing it really well -- and that was the sharing of the photographs taken on the app. It completely streamlined the process and made it seamless for their users to share their creations with their network. This approach worked and Instagram soon left Hipstamatic in the dust with its growing userbase and eventual historic Facebook acquisition. The rest is history.

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Parallels to crypto

Reading about the beginnings of these two apps/companies reminds me of Bitcoin's history and the disruption that it brought with the great technological invention that is the blockchain. As a digital currency, it allowed for peer-to-peer payments bypassing all the middlemen of the traditional banking system.

I was floored the first time I sent a Bitcoin transaction. Sure it was a steep learning curve in the early days, and there was plenty of room to make mistakes, but I was excited by the potential it offered.

Forks and copycats followed but none could match Bitcoin's success. But Bitcoin isn't perfect. Eventually a coin will emerge that aims to do everything Bitcoin can do but better.

I believe that coin is Nano.

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References

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102615/story-instagram-rise-1-photo0sharing-app.asp

https://www.fastcompany.com/3002034/no-filter-how-instagram-caused-hipstamatic-lose-focus-and-gamble-social

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipstamatic

A story I share don Facebook to get people exposed to what crypto can be

"A very strange confluence of events this last week.
Back at the end of January, I wired a large amount of money to China through TD bank to pay for parts for a laser I use in my office. The laser has been in Florida since about this time last year awaiting repair. The manufacturer ; located in Wuhan China and incorporates the regions name in its own: Wuhan Gigaa Optronics Technology Co., was shut down when covid hit China early on and then , as we know, it hit us. So throughout last year I didn't want to spend the money for the repair but recently decided to put PPP money towards the machine.
The money was sent on January 26th and I was charged $50 for the transfer.
I notified Gigaa that the money was on its way and they sent the parts out to Florida where the laser was being repaired.
A week later I was notified, by Gigaa that TD bank had misspelled Wuhan as Wuahun and the transfer was denied, and reversed.
I waited a few days to see the money to return to my account but nothing happened. Over the last three weeks I have visited the TD branch every other day and they can't give me a timeline or reason why the money is missing.
Meanwhile, the laser has been repaired and it ready to ship out of Florida, when the payment is made to China.
During this period, I started to look into cryptocurrency out of curiosity. I stumbled onto Dogecoin which is the cheapest of the cyber money ( $ .0575) a share but has much of the interest of the people who drove Game Stop and AMC stocks through the roof.
I bought a bunch of the cheap cyber coins and have watched it cycle up and down hoping to become a millionaire off of nickle stocks.
But because of what is happening with my TD bank money, I really see how cyber currency can replace the awful banking system we now have.
Cyber money relies on a vast network of computers which all hold the records of who owns what coins ( anonymously) and what transactions are made.
It is called " decentralized" meaning it is spread out and not concentrated into a few large institutions who all capitalize on taking pieces of everyones pie.
Imagine if I could have just paid Gigaa with Dogecoins or Bitcoin.. right over the internet, instantly, without having to pay $50 to someone to do the same thing?
Imagine businesses accepting coins that don't cost them %3 and don't have to deal with fraudulent claims and charge backs?
The value of money would be determined by those who have it and not b y those wanting to take everyone else's!
Start familiarizing yourself with cyber currency now.... it is the future...
And BTW... TD bank still has not gotten back to me. I had to withdraw more money so i can go to Western Union and wire it to China and get my equipment. I closed one account and will be making a transition to a new bank soon."
"

Whats the state of play for anonymization with Cardano?

With Bitcoin you have coin tumbling services and coinjoin to anonymize your holdings.

Does anything like this exist for Cardano?

Some people might suggest converting to Bitcoin/Monero and back to anonymise.

The problem with transferring across cryptos currencies is its a taxable event in some countries.

Will cryptocurrencies become mainstream currencies?

Non-fundamental factors caused the Hong Kong stock market to fall too much. Various American factors, exchange rate factors, epidemic factors, extraditions, events, etc. The decline caused by non-fundamental factors is an opportunity to buy high-quality stocks. If Bitcoin becomes the mainstream currency, will it lead time?

What features would be you find useful in a "Robo-advisor for Crypto"? 🤖

I'm working on a robo-advisor that would help people automate their portfolio for cryptocurrency investments. You can think of it like Betterment for Crypto.

The target audience would not be "hard core" crypto traders. But rather, folks who are interested in crypto because they want to diversify their overall investments assets but want a more passive approach because they don't have the time or energy to do the legwork. (So maybe you wouldn't be a user but maybe have a coworker/aunt/friend who would be).

Here are the features/benefits of a robo-advisor that I'm hoping to get some feedback about:

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1. Automated Rebalancing. The benefit here is to make sure the portfolio is never overexposed to one coin and collect some gains along the way. For example, maybe someone always wants 50% of the asset allocation to be in Bitcoin. So the robo-advisor can rebalance when that percent allocation varies. Or maybe someone only wants 2% of their total net worth to be in cryptocurrency. The robo-advisor could liquidate the excess amount above a certain threshold.
2. Diversification. Just like with stocks, diversifying crypto spreads out the bets. You could argue Bitcoin and Ethereum are the main game in town. But in light of recent events, there's a strong argument for diversification (i.e. the astronomical gas prices on Ethereum driving mind & marketshare towards Binance coin and others).
3. Vetted Cryptocurrencies. I guess this part of the robo-advisor would involve a human. So maybe I should call this a "cyborg-advisor". But the idea here is to spare people from researching each coin, which as many of you know can get really complex & time-consuming. You might think, "well, why not just go by market cap weighted index?" But looking at the top coins by market cap, at least one is questionable due to regulatory issues (XRP/Ripple) and others are has-been's at this point (like Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash).
4. Earn Interest. Defi products can be part of the automated portfolio, similar to bond allocations in retirement funds (although much riskier of course). IMO defi is crazy difficult for a casual retail investor to take part in. Blockfi is probably the closest thing to hiding the complexities of lending crypto for rewards, but you don't get the collateral safety valves built into defi.
5. Automated Tax Loss Harvesting. Just as you can sell stocks at a loss to offset capital gains, the robo-advisor would do something similar but with crypto.

Questions for the sub:

• Would you (or someone you're close to) use a crypto robo-advisor? If not, please explain.
• What do you think of the features mentioned above? What other features would you like to see?
• How much would you be willing to pay? 1%? 0.5%? 0.25% assets under management?
• Any other feedback?

Immediate advice needed on abandoned property laws in NY and crypto

Howdy folks,

I’m in a real pickle, and I need legal assistance. Not sure if my flair is appropriate. Here’s my issue:

First off, I’m a US citizen that’s been out of the country for almost a year (first to avoid covid, then to avoid any potential fiascos around the election, and then to describe a new species and publish some range extensions).

I have a small amount of bitcoin sitting in a Circle account. I set the Circle account up a few years ago while I was recouping from Lyme disease at my folks’ house in NY (Lyme sucks, watch out for ticks, and always get a Doxy prophylactic if you get an attached tick). I’ve since moved out of state. I did an address change, but never thought to update it with Circle.

Fast forward to now, my mother asks me over the phone if she should open an envelope I got from Circle. It turns out they’ve stopped being a bitcoin brokerage (for some time) and they are on the verge of transferring my BTC to the state of NY as abandoned property in the beginning of March. There is a phone number on the form I can call as well as a USD amount that’s less than half of the valued BTC I have on there. I called the number and it’s for a company that handles the abandoned property transference. She says that I have a few weeks and to get on my account and transfer out the BTC to a private wallet. She also says if I get the letter filled out they’ll send me a check. Clearly I want the BTC, not the USD value from a few weeks ago. As well, their website clearly states that people with BTC in their account cannot convert it to cash, but can only transfer it out to another wallet. There are also holding fees, etc.

I immediately try and log on but quickly realize a huge problem. I no longer have the number associated with the 2FA I set up with my account or if I did use my current number then it doesn’t work internationally (I don’t think this is the case, as I get 2FA texts from my bank, etc, here). There is an option on the site if you’ve lost your device/number by submitting pics of your ID and a pic of you holding your ID. I did this, but the ID is of course in my new resident state. I get an immediate automated reply on 2/17. I respond with a letter stating this issue needs ASAP attention. I get nothing back. I write several emails and get nothing back. Some sleuthing nets me a phone number which I call and leave a detailed message on. The next day I get a reply saying that they had listened to my message and-

“Please note that your funds are in the process of being escheated to the state of New York.

When funds are escheated as unclaimed property, the state is responsible for holding these funds
on your behalf indefinitely.”

But no help in resetting my phone number to get into the account.

Best solution is I can reset the number associated with my account, log in and transfer my BTC to a wallet. The company seems completely unwilling to address this though.

If in fact they’ve converted my BTC to USD (is that legal without some sort of expressed permission?) do I have any recourse to sue for the actual amount of BTC I had as opposed to the converted value from USD from a while ago? And if they’ve done it before the deadline given to me on both the letter and the date given to me on the phone do I have any recourse there?

It’s been a week since I first emailed the company and I am no closer to getting on to my account. I have a little over a week to get on before the deadline.

I’m a conservation biologist and this would be a huge chunk of change for me that I was counting on having in the future. Losing a majority portion of that because of a weird confluence of timing and events as well as Circle simply not feeling like responding to my request to reset my number is nuts.

I’ll take any sound advice and gladly take any suggestions for legal rep from a lawyer with some experience in this field if you guys think it’s necessary.

Any help welcome!

Fair Market Value BTC somewhere Near 22k

Hi Noobs,

Wanted to check in with you all and talk about the 2017-2018 bull run to crypto winter, and how I decided to go about figuring out where the exact bottom was going to be. We can use some of that information and apply it to the current BTC decline into Crypto Winter.

Ok so, in 2018 we seen a repeat of what always happens after a BTC bull run, which is a large quick moving down slope, moving somewhere around 20/30% in a single day.

Back then, I bought back in at the false floor, I made gains in a dead cat bounce and got out before the whole market feel off a god damn cliff, so over the next few weeks I thought about the basics a lot (I was in my first year of my masters and was devoting my first year to studying every aspect of crypto).

I wanted to know exactly how much money it was to run a Bitcoin mining farm, and what equipment they used specifically.

So I got all of that information and figured out that in 2018 it was just over 3k to produce each new Bitcoin. Like 3,100 to be exact or what I presented on my first year review for my masters.

Luckily we also have another data point which is, the pandemic drop which landed BTC at around 3,800 - super great data point because it shows us what inflation had done to the mining costs!!! Since 2018.

Ok so here is how we calculate the lowest BTC can be before Miners will stop selling and the price will go up:

First we should account for the inflation 3100 (in 2018) and 3800 (in 2020)

3800 - 3100 = 700 (for two years this could be because upgrades of mining equipment is needed constantly thus inflation is extremely high in the Bitcoin market and driven by competition)

700 / 2 = 350 per year

So because we went through the halving event we can double 3800 plus 350

(3800 + 350)2 = $8300

We can also assert that the $8300 is the near the lowest amount per coin right now.

So as we creep in to crypto winter II the lowest price point we would see out of this Decline would be about $8300

Last time what it took 7 months for the market to really bottom out to the point where the only people selling was miners to cover their costs.

Now because there are developments since 2018 crash I place the fair market value somewhere around 18-22k because of the coins increased use. Anything above 22k is just hype.

PS if you are buying right now you are being ripped off and will take substantial losses, as the market declines into crypto winter 2