Bitcoin / Bitcoins / Crypto Currency

Not sure how this would work. You'd be crystallising the gain when you place the wager and CGT would become due at that point.

If you could bet on whether the price will increase or decrease over some time period, I think you could effectively create a price tracker out of a series of bets which could end up being CGT-free. But that seems incredibly stupid and borderline fraudulent. Fun idea though.

I'm waiting for the wife to get her dual citizenship for Portugal... She was born in Canada but her mom was born in the Azores. We stayed at her grandmother's house in San Miguel where I rode my bike to a waterfall placed within meters away from the ocean's shore line (Cascata do homem). That is where I found my peace during meditation.

cascata do homem photos https://g.co/kgs/xNJcnxf

Ah, I was thinking he meant using the BTC to place the bet.

This is just spread betting. It's legally tax free but you can't offset losses so you need to be confident of something increasing beyond the offered spread.

There are plenty that offer this for shares, markets, etc but I don't know of any that do it for crypto.

Eric Trump has just explained the purpose of crypto. He said his family had embraced it because some banks stopped doing business with them after Jan. 6. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/us/politics/eric-trump-cryptocurrency-conference.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Market cap is shrinking, Michael Saylor stopped buying, Fed putting a pause on rate cuts, BlackRock holding the price near 100k to wipe out moon boys venge trading to recover losses trading on leverage...

Post edit: Seeing that no one is here to defend the idea that the Bullrun is still in full swing, I will just clarify my stance on cryptocurrency. I believe there are higher prices in the future but not until the distribution of weak handed late comers are shaken out. Some of whom have invested money they cannot afford and will panic sell forcing price to accelerate in whatever direction it's heading. Now that interest rates are coming down, it will be cheaper to borrow against whatever assets to use as collateral or personal credit available. I hope to be wrong but there maybe a point where price will surpass all time highs to trap new buyers who will again experience a retrace to the price from where they bought. All the weak hands left in the game who bought above 100k will exit their positions and trigger another sell off. Only then once all the trading accounts have been liquidated will there be a pivot in price... I'm hesitant to short because the experienced folk know that scam wicks are a sure way for exchanges to make profit with minimal risk.

See you at 60k

It sounds like you are basically saying that bitcoin will go up and it will go down, which I agree with. But no one can predict short term price movements.

However, there are metrics that people track to get some insight on where we are in the cycle, which give a bit more certainty than going on cubes alone.

One is average price paid per coin on exchanges vs market price, which gives some structure to the 'weak seller' effects you are describing. It's explained here, about half way down, along with a couple of other indicators.
https://www.lynalden.com/december-2024-newsletter/
It's currently suggesting we are in the middle between massively over and under valued.

Also the power law stuff, which (last time I looked) was implying a high for this cycle of around $180k some time next year, then a low of maybe $60-80k
https://giovannisantostasi.medium.com/the-bitcoin-power-law-theory-962dfaf99ee9

Then you get the super cyclers who say that it is about to go critical with the US/Trump buying, other countries following, etc.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliceliu/2024/10/28/bitcoin-may-shift-to-a-super-cycle-breaking-the-crypto-market-norm/

So you might see $60k again as the bottom of the next cycle, it might not go that low, or there may not be another cyclical drop at all!

What's the concensus on whether quantum computing will be able to hack the bitcoin encryption? Seems to be developing at a faster pace then expected at the moment. Surely that will put end to the raging bull? When or if it happens

By the time quantum computers can get to the point of cracking bitcoins encryption - it would have likely developed quantum resistant cryptography - as far as I can tell. I think bitcoin is already starting the migration - but could be wrong.

Thought that could be the case, think early unused could be very vulnerable. Perhaps the ones in the tip could finally yield some value or even satoshi cashes some in?

I think this is likely the biggest risk. It is probable that for quantum resistant encryption to be effective coins will need to be moved to new "resistant" addresses. So old untouched coins will be vulnerable.

From chat gpt:

While quantum computing poses theoretical risks to Bitcoin's encryption, practical threats are not imminent. The Bitcoin network, along with the broader cryptographic community, has time to adapt to the quantum era by implementing post-quantum cryptographic solutions.

I agree that history and metrics have a definite influence on price but given the current economic conditions, isn't something to anticipate repeating. Cryptocurrency is no longer in its infancy stage. Smart money has discovered how to exploit and manipulate new investors that have arrived late to the game. I understand that human psychology is the basis of how market cycles operate and believe that opportunity is right around the corner. As soon as the market has absorbed/liquidated enough traders to believe that price is going up, that is when they will pivot and start liquidating the next group of traders convinced of price to be going lower. Exchanges rinse out leverage, recycle the funds to create liquidity then repeat the same cycle in both directions. I can wait untill open interest dies