from the know-when-to-hold-'em-know-when-to-fold-'em dept.
Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed has joined a growing group of Bitcoin skeptics:
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed is joining the long line of skeptics saying bitcoin is a bubble as the digital currency continues to set record highs. "I just don't believe in this bitcoin thing. I think it's just going to implode one day. I think this is Enron in the making," Alwaleed told CNBC in an interview. "It just doesn't make sense. This thing is not regulated, it's not under control, it's not under the supervision" of any central bank, he said.
In his interview with CNBC, he said that the high price of Uber made Lyft a more attractive investment:
"We were in discussions with both Uber and Lyft, but when we evaluated both companies, we thought that Lyft is a better entry point for us. Because at that time, Uber's price was at a plateau of its highest height. So we invested in Lyft, and we have a very good relationship with .... the management," Alwaleed said in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box. "But Uber still is a great company, obviously, and Uber is the company that began with this whole idea of shared rides. Our choice was to go with Lyft but it doesn't mean that Uber is not good."
Alwaleed, who runs Kingdom Holding, made his comments on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report that another Saudi fund, state-owned Public Investment Fund, was struggling to deal with a disappointing investment in Uber.
Kingdom Holdings is remaining invested in Twitter but has reduced its stake in Apple:
Alwaleed said he thinks Twitter's rivals are monopolies. But while he has wound down his stake in Apple, he said he doesn't agree with calls for more regulation on big tech. "Clearly, behemoth companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft — these are giants," Alwaleed said. "We have seen a lot of voices in the United States where we need to regulate what's happening on Facebook, and to a lesser extent on Twitter. ...We've seen in the '90s and early 2000s they were trying to break up Microsoft and it failed completely. I think it's a free market, there should be free competition."
Also at Reuters.
Related Stories
Something is definitely going on in Saudi Arabia:
Saudi authorities arrested at least 11 princes, several current ministers and dozens of former ministers in a sweeping move reportedly designed to consolidate power for the son of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. According to media reports citing Saudi-owned television network Al Arabiya, an anti-corruption committee ordered the arrests hours after King Salman directed the creation of the committee, headed by his favorite son and adviser, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The committee was established by the royal decree, The Associated Press reports, "due to the propensity of some people for abuse, putting their personal interest above public interest, and stealing public funds." Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is among those detained, The Wall Street Journal reports. Alwaleed holds stakes in some of the world's major companies, including Apple and Twitter.
Remember Prince Alwaleed? Bitcoin could outlive him.
It's unclear what those arrested are accused of doing, but Al-Arabiya reported that new investigations into the 2009 Jeddah floods and 2012 MERS virus outbreak have been launched.
Separately, the heads of the Saudi National Guard and Saudi Royal Navy have also been replaced.
BBC notes that the reform faction is in control here:
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Prince Mohammed is moving to consolidate his growing power while spearheading a reform programme. [...] Prince Mohammed recently said the return of "moderate Islam" was key to his plans to modernise Saudi Arabia. Addressing an economic conference in Riyadh, he vowed to "eradicate the remnants of extremism very soon". Last year, Prince Mohammed unveiled a wide-ranging plan to bring social and economic change to the oil-dependent kingdom.
Some Soylentils have been skeptical of Saudi Arabia's recent moves towards liberalization (some listed below). Has this apparent purge of internal political opposition changed your mind about the viability of these reforms?
news.bitcoin.com reports that the proposed blocksize increase to 2MB from 1MB of the SegWit2x fork of Bitcoin has been cancelled.
The post states that "the Segwit2x effort began in May with a simple purpose: to increase the blocksize and improve Bitcoin scalability.
[...] [Bitgo CEO, Mike ] Belshe predicts that "as fees rise on the blockchain, we believe it will eventually become obvious that on-chain capacity increases are necessary. When that happens, we hope the community will come together and find a solution, possibly with a blocksize increase. Until then, we are suspending our plans for the upcoming 2MB upgrade."
The term "SegWit2X" is a combination of "Segregated Witness" which offloads some of the transaction data from the blockchain leading to smaller entries and "2X" refers to doubling the block size. More background at Explainer: What Is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?.
They further note that the prices surged by more than $500 in the first hour after the announcement and hit a new high of $7900 per coin.
But, as of this being written (2017-11-10 02:50:00 UTC), the price of a bitcoin is back down to $7,254.56.
Related:Will This Battle For The Soul Of Bitcoin Destroy It? - SoylentNews
Saudi Prince Predicts Demise for Bitcoin
Saudi Aramco and Alphabet/Google may cooperate on a "technology hub" within Saudi Arabia, or at least build some data centers:
Saudi Aramco, the world's largest energy company, and Google parent Alphabet have entered discussions to create a technology hub in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The kingdom is embarking upon an ambitious plan, led by the 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to diversify the nation's oil-dependent economy. The foundation of the effort is a plan to create a huge sovereign wealth fund, underwritten by selling shares in the state-owned Aramco.
The initial public offering, which could happen this year, is expected to be the world's biggest-ever share sale. Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser recently told CNBC his company is ready for the IPO this year, but is waiting on the government to choose an international list venue.
Alphabet and Aramco have discussed forming a joint venture that would build data centers around the kingdom, sources familiar with the matter tell the Journal. It remains to be seen which customers the data centers would serve and how large the joint venture would be, but it could be listed in the Saudi stock exchange, the sources said.
Data centers are just a "tangible" area of cooperation, not necessarily the entire purpose of the joint venture. Saudi Arabia has talked about building a $500+ billion "megacity" that would be technology-focused.
Meanwhile, slightly-less-of-a-billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been put back to work:
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:12PM (8 children)
Ha! Looky there, a way to quantify and exchange value without control (and in no relation with oil)... and the world doesn't collapse.
Seems like the regulation, control and supervision of currency are overrated, so what for the Saudis are needed?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:23PM (1 child)
bitcoin = time * ( electricity + silicon carbide\dioxide )
Gee I wonder who has lots of power and sand to spare other than China...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 27 2017, @12:48PM
Yeah, but if he doesn't have faith in bitcoin not only he won't mine for them... but he's also an infidel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 27 2017, @02:08PM (4 children)
Dear Saudi Prints:
I predict the demise of oil.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 27 2017, @03:11PM
No such person at the address, return to sender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 27 2017, @07:26PM (1 child)
> I predict the demise of oil.
I'll take that bet. what deadline and how much?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday October 27 2017, @08:23PM
Actually, what are the securities/derivatives that are positioned against oil and/or for alternative energies in a sector-wide way? Seems like that would be one long-term investment to consider.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by toddestan on Sunday October 29 2017, @05:09AM
Actually, one of the theories out there is that the Saudi's believe exactly that. They believe that in a few years they'll be sitting on a bunch of worthless oil, hence the reason they are pumping it out and selling it as fast as they can while it's still worth something.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:54PM
Cowrie shells, Tulip bulbs, sub-prime mortgages. All exchanged as a kind of currency without any central regulation. Has there ever been a commodity that *hasn't* bubbled when its market is left to the vagaries of collective human ignorance and greed?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:46PM (4 children)
That doesn't make sense. Either they are Twitter's rivals, then they cannot be monopolies (and even if we assume that Twitter were of a negligible size, at most one of the competitors could be a monopoly, by the very definition of the term). Or they are monopolies, but then they all have their own market segment that they dominate, and therefore aren't rivals of Twitter.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday October 27 2017, @01:48PM
There are different markets to consider: When Twitter got blocked in China it affected their performance in the surrounding countries as well. Also Russian ISPs own by Kremlin friendly oligarchs were deliberately down-throttling Twitter and favoring VK. Similar issues surfaced in India as well...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 27 2017, @03:13PM (1 child)
Crude oil's fumes will do this to you. Or even to a Saudi prince.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @05:10PM
I believe he is more in the business of making dollars than sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @09:25PM
That translates to "I own a lot of Twitter stock and I want the US government to regulate Twitter's competitors".
(Score: 3, Funny) by Revek on Friday October 27 2017, @12:48PM (1 child)
He didn't get in on the ground floor and can't figure out how to profit from it. However, the horse he is betting on would profit from bitcoins failure.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:56PM
Doesn't mean he is wrong, though.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday October 27 2017, @01:15PM (4 children)
Ah, another expert whose opinion I value. And, being Saudi, he knows all about freedom and capitalism, so no hypocrisy or anything.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 27 2017, @03:15PM (2 children)
Better listen, boy, he has zillions to prove he knows what he's talkin' about!
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:52PM (1 child)
He has zillions, because he born on top of the heap, not because his infinite talent as businessman. Although he indeed must have skills, maybe he is triyng to use his conspicuous position to influence, obviously in his favor. As we don't see frequently saudi princes deliberating about this matters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:39PM
LOL you equate the talent of a businessman to whether they desire bitcoinz? hahahaha
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday October 27 2017, @04:56PM
Al-Waleed also said "The Earth isn't round, either."
"Yep," assured Al-Waleed, "It's shaped like a burrito."
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by crafoo on Friday October 27 2017, @01:18PM (1 child)
Oooh, a saudi prince thinks monetary systems should be gripped by the iron fist of central banks and government? Do tell! Amazing insight from a goat herder pushing sand around in the shithole of the world. I wonder what he will be saying when the leading fiat currency of the world isn't backed by industrialized military violence beholden to his oil teats.
(Score: 2) by bootsy on Friday October 27 2017, @01:27PM
His past track record isn't that great either. He was one of the biggest share holders in Citigroup when it's stock collapsed to 1 dollar and completely failed to see the sub-prime crisis.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by higuita on Friday October 27 2017, @01:26PM (2 children)
So this guy says that bitcoins will fail because "This thing is not regulated, it's not under control, it's not under the supervision"
but then for big companies, he says that there should not exist any regulation: "I think it's a free market, there should be free competition."
So... basically, he invested millions in apple and twitter on the right time, but fail to invest in bitcoins and right now is too risky to even try
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @04:49PM (1 child)
The bank regulated currency will be around long after the bitcoin bubble bursts because the new crypto-currency flavor of the month becomes hot. Like any bubble, the value of bitcoin is so high because of speculators driving up the cost, not because it is settling out to its own intrinsic value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:32PM
stfu, you fucking slave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @01:42PM (2 children)
But the forked maintainers are working hard to kill it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday October 27 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
The maintainers have been forked as well?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 27 2017, @07:30PM
The Church, in its infinite mercy, prefers the much faster process of being Canonized.
(Score: 1, Informative) by oldmac31310 on Friday October 27 2017, @01:56PM (3 children)
The guy sounds like an idiot.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 27 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)
The guy sounds like an idiot.
He's worth more than Trump. So by Republican logic that makes him smarter than our president.
Of course, that doesn't make your statement necessarily false!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @08:57PM (1 child)
Saying he is smarter than Trump isn't exactly setting a high bar. I'm pretty sure there are monkeys that are smarter than Trump.
An example of Trump's intelligence: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/923363818213851136/photo/1 [twitter.com]
He can't even string a coherent sentence together.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 27 2017, @09:06PM
Yep, I know a lot of idiots that are smarter than Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @02:02PM (3 children)
but what did the New Power Generation think of it?
What, too soon? Too old a reference?
(Score: 2) by lx on Friday October 27 2017, @02:58PM (2 children)
The NPG think that money don't matter tonight.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 27 2017, @07:35PM (1 child)
Money, Money, Money ... It's a rich man's world.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 27 2017, @10:41PM
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:42PM
Sure his wise words are to have in consideration, but not without first hearing what Nigerian prince has to say, because he is very well versed in money transactions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @04:13PM (2 children)
Every "prince" over there is just another Harvey Weinstein. We should either pull the plug, or quit complaining about the sexual perverts who run the world
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2017, @02:09AM (1 child)
We deal with them because they have cheap oil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2017, @04:45PM
You deal with them because you're also perverts. That way nobody can make any accusations against the other. Mutually Assured Blackmail. All of politics operates this way. Simply look at the way they cover for each other, just like the cops' Thin Blue Line. Despicable pervs all of them! Why do we give them such power??!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 27 2017, @10:12PM
However I have observed that a great many other people are willing to exchange it for USD$, so when someone sent me a LiteCoin the other day, I decided to just leave it in my wallet at CoinBase.
When my code goes beta I'm going to be richer than G-d. When that happens, or maybe when my product ships I'll buy a BitCoin.
Just one.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 27 2017, @10:14PM (3 children)
Can one sell short on BitCoin?
Also can I put cryptocurrency in my IRA?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2017, @03:07AM (2 children)
Yes and yes.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday October 28 2017, @08:13AM
Filter error: Comment body not necessary
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday October 28 2017, @08:19AM
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/retirement/2017/10/17/is-a-bitcoin-ira-right-for-you/106206590/ [usatoday.com]
tl;dr: open a self-directed digital IRA account. googling for bitcoin individual retirement account turns up a couple vendors.
That it's "digital" doesn't imply that it's all cryptocurrency. One can also trade in traditional investments like stocks and bonds. (I'm unclear why they're called "digital".)
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]