Bitcoin Jumps Another 10% in 24 Hours, Sets New Record at $19,000 (arstechnica.com) 224
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica:
Bitcoin's price set a new record on Saturday as the virtual currency rose above $19,000 for the first time on the Bitstamp exchange. The gains came just hours after the currency crossed the $18,000 mark. Bitcoin's value has doubled over the last three weeks, and it's up more than 20-fold over the last year.
Bitcoin's value keeps rising despite a growing chorus of experts who say the currency value is an unsustainable bubble. One CNBC survey this week found that 80 percent of Wall Street economists and market strategists saw bitcoin's rise as a bubble, compared to just two percent who said the currency's value was justified. Another survey reported by The Wall Street Journal this week found that 51 out of 53 economists surveyed thought bitcoin's price was an unsustainable bubble.
Less than a month ago, Bitcoin was selling for $8,000.
Bitcoin's value keeps rising despite a growing chorus of experts who say the currency value is an unsustainable bubble. One CNBC survey this week found that 80 percent of Wall Street economists and market strategists saw bitcoin's rise as a bubble, compared to just two percent who said the currency's value was justified. Another survey reported by The Wall Street Journal this week found that 51 out of 53 economists surveyed thought bitcoin's price was an unsustainable bubble.
Less than a month ago, Bitcoin was selling for $8,000.
I have an idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's play Who's The Greater Fool?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well I invested all my money in tulips. Who's laughing mow?
Re: (Score:2)
Did someone just mow your tulips?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This whole situation reminds me of the old Onion article, AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Money [theonion.com]. The AOL-Time Warner merger was the peak in the Dot Com boom insanity, en route to it transitioning to a bust. Now: Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money [theonion.com]
The amount of money people are dumping into coins is just absurd. I was just checking, and Dogecoin now has a market cap of $754 - more than the combined GDPs of Tualu, Kiriba
Re: (Score:2)
Now: Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money [theonion.com]
That's a very weird Onion article....possibly the weirdest I've ever seen from them yet. The sarcasm in the article is almost undetectable.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have time for silly games, I'm gonna buy me some of them thar bitcoins before they go up even more!
Re: (Score:2)
It's very much in "Greater Fool" mode. I was just messaged the other day by my sister, who is my standard bearer for the technologically illiterate (can't even remember how many times I've had to remove viruses from her system because she installed some program or opened some email attachment or another... probably is infected with spyware as we speak). Your standard instagram / pinterest / farmville / etc user. She and her husband had already bought a small amount of bitcoin and were thinking about buyin
Re: I have an idea. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I did the last time I was at her house. But she surely has a new computer by now.
Re: (Score:2)
Thing is -- look at the whole subprime mortgage thing. People, businesses, unions, other banks, and even countries invested in securities they had zero idea about. If you're thinking bitcoin is a bad investment because the normals are getting involved?
Likely not.
If so, then there is quite the potential for it to take off like crazy. The real problem is -- getting out before the bubble pops... just like with every other scheme over the last .. well, since we've had markets.
Re: (Score:2)
https://lightning.network/ [lightning.network]
Bitcoin Mania (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bitcoin Mania (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't say that the creation of a currency is useless, if it fill some sort of need it will probably will metaphorically feed mouths. The problem with Bitcoin is that it sucks as money. Sure if you're trading in BitCoin as an *asset* and your timing works out you'll make a killing, but the volatility of Bitcoin makes it unattractive to set a price for goods denominated in Bitcoin. If the price swings high nobody will buy. If it swings low then you could be selling at a loss.
Re: Bitcoin Mania (Score:1)
Every currency is volatile when it is thinly held. Give it time it will become boring like the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
The volatility is a temporary thing. After the first gold nugget was ever found in a river, how long before it had a price that was stable enough to use it as global currency ? I'm guessing it took more than 10 years.
Re: (Score:3)
Gold's stability was created through the near universal acceptance as a currency which lead to large trading volumes against more stable items with known value like food, wood, etc. Fiat currencies achieved the same thing via a decree from the government.
The GP described a chicken and egg problem. Why would you sell goods and services against an unstable currency? How do you stabilise a currency if you can't trade it against goods and services. The best you can do is trade it in high volume against a fixed
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait, and it will stabilize itself. The volatility is caused by a new asset starting out at zero, and trying to discover its real price. People are excited now, but in a few years time, it will become boring, and volatility goes down as price settles somewhere.
The GP described a chicken and egg problem
That problem was solved too. We now have chickens and eggs.
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait, and it will stabilize itself.
Based on what? I just gave you the criteria required for a stable currency system. Something needs to change, it's not just a simple case of waiting.
Re: (Score:2)
Based on what?
Like I said. It will become boring. Volatility depends on people changing their minds. There's a finite supply of people, and they can only change their minds so many times before they settle on something.
Re: (Score:2)
Like I said. It will become boring.
Like I said: Based on what? The bitcoin volatility attracts speculation which retains volatility. Boring? We've only just started trading bitcoin futures this week. That speculation in all things promotes instability and speculation never gets boring. Heck we're still pretty good at screwing up the price of oil, petrol, and even gold itself through this means.
Heck it may be worse than that. Much of the rest of the things on the world are traded at high frequency. That in itself provides a negative feedback
Re: (Score:2)
Sure it is. Just wait long enough and Bitcoin will find it's natural value. Just like pogs. And beanie babies. And baseball cards.
Re: (Score:3)
but the volatility of Bitcoin makes it unattractive to set a price for goods denominated in Bitcoin.
And this is precisely the chicken and egg problem that will be difficult to solve. Central banks can resolve this by decree but with an alternate currency stability comes through trading volumes against other more stable things. As long as that is just small one way trading against another currency in small volumes it will remain highly volatile.
It won't be stable until there's wide spread trade in goods and services in the currency.
There won't be wide spread trade in goods and services until the currency i
How is that different from other currency? (Score:3)
So what is your view on the difference between the non-value of BTC and the non-value of "real" paper money (which doesn't feed people either, but is equally a convenience).
I mean, is this a non-subtle way to tell everyone they should buy only gold? Or do you mean to say people should trade only using potatoes.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think much of dollars either. Especially at the moment.
Any investment counselor can tell you how to diversify.
I am welcome in a number of countries and have a way to make a living there if necessary. That's about the best you can do.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, I am the same way - I can make a living it lots of countries also. But "making a living" implies you will be paid something, either USD or EUR or BITC. Because of volatility I'm not sure I'd want to be paid in BITC at the moment but long term I don't see a fundamental reason why I'd prefer other currency over BITC, and because of potential long-term volatility with countries I can actually see a case where I'd prefer to be paid in BITC. Any currency only has value if people all agree it does, look
Re: How is that different from other currency? (Score:3)
The US Dollar or any currency equivalent backed by a large and productive workforce provides economic value by lowering transaction costs and increasing liquidity.
How is BitCoin any different? (Score:2)
BitCoin is backed by a large productive workforce also. In face I would argue that BitCoin is MORESO backed in that way, because all people keeping it going are productive and intelligent members of society - in the U.S. you have millions on welfare for example, that are not productive members of society in that they do not produce, just consume. Bitcoin has zero such overhead.
Re: How is BitCoin any different? (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s not what productive workforce means in this case. It means they actually use the currency as an exchange medium. The more in population and volume of transactions, the bigger the productive workforce that creates the bedrock of confidence & trust that others rely upon.
You canâ(TM)t really count someoneâ(TM)s daily life that runs in their local currency and only stores value in Bitcoin against Bitcoin. Thou the few storage and retrieval transactions do count toward it.
By its ver
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bitcoin probably keeps several amortised power generation plants in business.
Lots of useless things (Score:3)
Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
Neither will the creation of one more video game or the invention of some new beauty product. People invest money in lots of useless things, why should Bitcoin be any different?
Re: (Score:2)
Value is food, materials, information, useful work. Dollars/bitcoins are unreliable media for exchange of value, not the value itself. Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
I agree with you 100%. And yet.......
Somehow I wish I had bothered to mine a few coins back in 2010.
Re: (Score:2)
It might do a very good job wrestling control over the financial system from unreliable governments, though. If I were living in Venezuela, for example, I'd much prefer to own bitcoin, rather than the local currency. And if it grows big enough it will be a threat to every other currency on the planet.
Re: Bitcoin Mania (Score:2)
It might feed mine.
Re: (Score:3)
The purpose of money is to facilitate trade. Say you raise chickens, and you go to the market with eggs to sell. You want to buy some milk, so you visit the dairy farmer. He has milk, but he doesn't want eggs. He wants carrots. So you visit the vegetable farmer. Yes he has carrots, but he doesn't want eggs either. He wants apples. So you visit the orchard farmer who sells apples. He doesn
Re: (Score:2)
Liquid currency has a value; Bitcoins are cheaper to produce than the same value in US Pennys.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, a hundred dollar bill is vastly less expensive to print than it is to mine a bitcoin. Even a dollar bill is.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all in GNUCoin, I have over 300,000 Stallmans of GNUCoin. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
It's all in GNUCoin, I have over 300,000 Stallmans of GNUCoin. :-)
How many BogoMips of computation did that take?
Re: Bitcoin Mania (Score:3)
Re: Bitcoin Mania (Score:3)
Why is this marked insightful, in Economics sense, it is totally wrong. Creation/destruction of value and utility is straight up Econ so I will leave that to the reader. Let me tackle the -useful work- part of that. It is not an Economic term itself but used quite often to explain the general concept of utility and value; for laymen... which clearly it failed to here.
An example: If we find two robots, one digging a hole and one filling it up, one would be hard pressed to find anyone that would consider th
Re: (Score:2)
And before people bring up -but it is just like stocks-. NO it is NOT. Maybe the stocks you are familiar with or heard about are zero sum games or based on speculations. That makes up a very small part of the market. The majority of the market is defined by the 401ks, pensions, insurance funds, trust funds, savings accounts, etc. The type of stocks these funds generally invest in represent growth in the pie; meaning everyones slices get bigger.
2006 just called, and want's us to buy 600 square foot i bedroom houses for 2 million dollars, a steal, and remember Real Estate never loses value! So buy them now before they reach infinite value.
Re: (Score:1)
2006 just called, and want's us to buy 600 square foot i bedroom houses
A house with i bedrooms would be perfect for those of us who have only imaginary sex
Tulip price index 1636-37 (Score:1)
This is good for tulips. [wikimedia.org]
Waiting... (Score:2)
A true niche (Score:2)
As much as Facebook is for forums and Google is for card catalogs, crypto-currency is to online money.
I think what most of us skeptics are overlooking is that as people move online, they are moving farther and farther from what we would call the "real world." There is absolutely a place for crytp-currencies. I always think -- but what if it all goes away due to a power outage. The problem with that thinking is that most of the planet doesn't think that way, virtual belongings are here to stay. Kitti
Supply and Demand (Score:2)
Only one question left: (Score:4, Insightful)
Who will be the ones left holding the bag?
Re: (Score:2)
They're similar to the people left holding bags of gold.
Endless growth (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Oh, look, another coinhead who can't do math.
Re: (Score:2)
Effing slashdot... I didn't reply to that guy, I replied to the other guy who thought we'd have 26 more weeks of 30% growth which is unsustainable(and obvious with a bit of math). It looks like I replied to the Bitcoin skeptic, but if you click 'parent' on my reply it shows the other guy.
Grandparent's math is correct. The current growth rate is not sustainable.
New asset class (Score:1)
Most cryptocurrencies are directly usable for payments, like a currency. There is also a network effect.
They work as a easy accessible store of value, like gold and silver, but easier to access for most people and can be traded in smaller volumes.
They are exchange tradable, like stocks. Everybode with a smartphone can participate.
Today's crypto
But what about the climate impact? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not sustainable
If the cost is too much, it'll slow down or go back down. Bitcoin doesn't need for it to grow.
Can you say Bubble (Score:2)
Say it all with me "Bubble"...
Seriously, Bitcoin is nothing but a string of unique numbers at it's core. There is no tangible value, not even a government fiat supporting it. The only thing propping up the value is it's meteoric increase in value. If any of the major holders of Bitcoin decide to divest, the value will go down and all the speculators that are leveraged to the hilt will try to sell and the value will drop to nothing overnight. If it were a stock, I would short the hell out of it.
This just in.. (Score:2)
1/1/2019:
Bitcoin just passed $1m per coin and governments worldwide have banned its use under penalty of death as it's too disruptive to existing economic norms. many "bit billionaires" are afraid of cashing in due to publicity and government scrutiny. Think this is unlikely, look at https://www.coindesk.com/price... [coindesk.com] (1 year) and do a linear regression of the trajectory. Makes tulips look like sawdust,
fantastic, don't invest in it (Score:2)
It's like watiching an approaching hurricane (Score:2)
I live in Houston, which was devastated by Hurricane Harvey this year. As the storm approached, we could all see (on radar) the progress of the storm, getting closer and closer. We knew it was going to cause a lot of damage, we just didn't know exactly when, or how much, or exactly where.
Bitcoin is going to be a disaster just as surely as Hurricane Harvey. It's going to hurt a lot of people, leave others unscathed, and help a few. But a collapse is certainly coming.
The best thing we can do for our friends i
Re: (Score:1)
You can all keep claiming that it's all a house of cards, and someday you might be proven right, but you're all missing out on easy money right now.
I'm sure the Dutch tulip-market investors felt the same way.
Spoiler: It didn't end well.
Re: (Score:2)
Neck beards are really stuck on this tulip thing. They said the bitcoin bubble would bust at $200, then $2000, and here we are nearly hitting $20,000 and no signs of stopping. Just admit this is new territory and doesn't work the same as traditional stocks.
Re: (Score:2)
They said the bitcoin bubble would bust at $200
I remember, right here on Slashdot, people predicting the bubble was going to pop when bitcoin reached $1.
Re:You're a fool if you don't hedge investments (Score:5, Insightful)
All forms of financial assets function as a form of promissory note: an asset that can later be exchanged for desired goods and services. The "selling point" for BTC was that it going to be some new global payment system replacing credit cards, unbacked by anything but public trust, but with sufficient public trust that it can retain value without physical backing assets or a country behind it. How's that assumption going?
* BTC is a terrible payment system from a technological perspective due to the huge processing cost and delays per transaction. Bitcoin fees aren't high because of gouging, they're high because bitcoin is technologically awful.
* It's far too volatile for such a role
* It already has a market cap as high as the major credit card companies combined, yet is accepted by a minuscule fraction as credit cards for the above reasons - which just screams "massive bubble".
* Indeed, many early "forward thinking" adopters have been going backwards and eliminating bitcoin payment options - the very excuse for justifying its price.
* Bitcoin is favoured target of hackers; it's proven much easier to compromise exchanges and wallets than traditional financial networks.
* Governments have numerous reasons to crack down on bitcoin (drugs, money laundering, deliberately crashing the assets of states with bitcoin reserves like North Korea, trying to pop a bubble gently to prevent a recession, etc), and extensive tools to do so, effectively driving it back to its innate value (a currency for underground criminal activity). Historically, the loss of one market - for example, China - has been compensated for by growth in western markets. But if you take western markets out of the picture, you're taking the vast majority of the world's capital out of the picture, period. It's even worse because western markets have disproportional leverage on the world's global financial systems, and decisions taken by them can reach well beyond their borders.
"Neck beards" also pointed out that the dotcom bubble was, in fact, a bubble, even though they couldn't tell you when it was going to burst. Yes, sometimes "neck beards" may underestimate the general public's willingness to mortgage all of their assets into internet fads when they blinded by a growth curve. But that doesn't change the basic issues underlying it all.
That doesn't mean that nothing will survive. Some of the dotcom crash's survivors became giants today eBay, Google, Amazon, etc. But most people who had their money lost their shirts. Perhaps some "coin" future may survive and even ultimately flourish. But what I can say is that BTC itself is going to pop at some point or another.
Re: (Score:2)
But what I can say is that BTC itself is going to pop at some point or another
No doubt it will. The big question is, after it pops, what will the price be ?
Re: (Score:2)
The only important part is that it will be very little and that it's best not to hold the currency for much longer. Same as for any bubble stock.
Re: (Score:2)
It will pop at $21000 and afterwards be completely worthless.
If you truly believe that, I invite you to open up a short position @ $21k.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the bigger question is, how much of that BTC will you be willing to part with in order to cash out? Remember, the system is massively overloaded right now to process transactions, and you have to pay quite a bit to get "priority" processing. When the bubble pops, and everyone wants to cash out - what will be the price to process? How much would you be willing to lose in order to get your transaction processed now, not 3 days from now (when the price could be 3 times lower)?
Gambling (Score:2)
Bubbles like this are basically just gambling at this point. Sure some idealists might believe in bitcoin, but I'd guess most of those investing are simply looking for the next get rich quick scheme. I have no doubt some will. Some very few will. It is like a lotto ticket, but a bit different in that the earlier you bought your ticket, the greater your chances of winning.
You mention the .COM bubble. Indeed as an investment analogy it isn't wrong. I've seen these investment pundits out there giving out thei
Re:You're a fool if you don't hedge investments (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
A whole new paradigm? This time it really is different!
Re: (Score:1)
I'm speculating a fairly paltry amount in altcoins. So far I've made a modest gain. If I lose it all, my investment is small enough not to worry about.
Personally I think it's all horribly overvalued right now, but I know nothing about this,and how it works.
Re: (Score:2)
How is that different from the stock market? If I'm making money, someone is losing money
Nonsense. The stock market can go up when productivity improvements (or tax cuts) increase profits. It is not zero sum. In a growing economy, everyone can be a winner.
Bitcoin is negative sum, because someone has to pay for the electricity. Bitcoin mining is a lot more expensive than growing tulips.
Re: (Score:2)
Bitcoin is negative sum, because someone has to pay for the electricity.
You have to offset the costs to the benefit of decentralized currency exchange. With growing utility, everybody can be a winner.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to offset the costs to the benefit of decentralized currency exchange. With growing utility, everybody can be a winner.
As long as most of our electricity generation is coming from polluting sources, Bitcoin is helping to destroy the biosphere. From that perspective alone, it is evil and should be destroyed.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything we do helps to destroy the biosphere. Better stop living.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything we do helps to destroy the biosphere. Better stop living.
That is provably false, so the only question left to ask is whether you're an idiot or a troll. I'm pretty sure you're a troll, but I'm too lazy to check your posting history. Start here [regenerati...tional.org].
Re: (Score:2)
If you believe the hippie crap from that website, I'm afraid that you're the idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
If you believe the hippie crap from that website, I'm afraid that you're the idiot.
If you don't believe regenerative farming is possible, riddle me this: how did "nature" "do it" before we were here?
Re: (Score:2)
With no farming?
Irrelevant. The land produced food for animals and became richer and richer, not more and more barren. The "secret" is that feces has to be returned to the field. If you just let it lie around for a year, poop turns into soil. It cooks its own pathogens to death and becomes more earth. You can do it faster with various kinds of reactor, and you can then actually capture the methane. We are doing this more and more now; it's called "sewage sludge". However, we can do it basically for free using technologies
Re: (Score:2)
How is that different from the stock market?
Not much different at all, which is why everyone knows what a bubble looks like.
Re: (Score:2)
How is that different from the stock market?
Simple: Shares in a company don't go up day after day like bitcoin does.
(and if they did you'd think something was wrong and not buy them)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
As for Bitcoin, I don'know if I even want to use it now, in case it's involved in some way with my Firefox getting compromised and this weird extension showing up without me installing it.
I understand your frustration. And I can help. Just send your Bitcoin to this address: 1Q8HcFA3GgTuL1NWr6PYB6mtYgdFgXRfGc [blockchain.info] and I'll take care of the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
Whoever mods this Offtopic is wrong.
Trump being president is a big part of why Bitcoin is rising this year.
Instability and uncertainty over possible war in Korea is driving people there to buy a currency that they'll be able to access if they have to suddenly flee the country.
Eastern Europeans afraid of Russia now the the US has all but abandoned NATO.
The US is losing it's global influence, so the Dollar is losing some of it's Store of Value ability.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump's administration is so corrupt, the FBI will find plenty to hang them with - and don't expect any to pull an Ollie North to save the orangutan in charge.
Re: Doubtful (Score:2)
Trump's administration is so corrupt, the FBI will find plenty to hang them with
In this arena, the level of "corruption" is entirely orthogonal to whether or not a puppet is made an example of... and if that's not perfectly clear at this point, you either haven't studied any political history or you didn't learn anything useful from it...
Re: (Score:2)
Trump's administration is so corrupt, the FBI will find plenty to hang them with
In this arena, the level of "corruption" is entirely orthogonal to whether or not a puppet is made an example of... and if that's not perfectly clear at this point, you either haven't studied any political history or you didn't learn anything useful from it...
Here's some "political history" for you - Richard Nixon. He was a much more wily & savvy player than Trump and couldn't save his presidency despite hanging on for a couple years.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
could be even bigger than the email investigation the FBI covered up for Hillary (which we also know for certain now thanks to the FBI agents' leaked texts).
The text of the text you're talking about:
“So look, you say we text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can’t be traced, you were just venting you feel bad that you’re gone so much but it can’t be helped right now.”
This is between two FBI agents who were having an affair with each other. [wapo.st]
The white house staff meanwhile is using untraceable communications [wired.com].
If you know anything "for certain" from the texts you're referring to, then you had already crawled so far up the right-wing's ass that you knew for certain Hillary was evil incarnate 30 years ago. For the rest of us, this would be funny were there no so many of you fucking lunatics running around, trying to destroy Ame
Re: Trump will face a grand jury (Score:2)
because Trump thinks
I'm quite certain that's not an explanation for anything that's occurred so far.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: talk about a bubble (Score:2)
Actually there have been a number of people pointing out from a technical side that there's only evidence of people holding the value artificially down... so they could buy in while it was still relatively low.
Re: APK MARATHON ALL DAY SUNDAY! (Score:2)
Re: Shouldn't talk w/ your mouth full Brockmire (Score:2)
Re: Quoted /.ers disagree "BrOcKmIrE" (Score:2)
Re: You prove exactly who & WHAT you are (Score:2)
Re: Can't be a racist vs. a religion... apk (Score:2)
Re: Can't be a racist vs. a religion... apk (Score:2)
Jews are a race.
Merely a culture and a religion (a religion that has greatly ignored the self-evident need to remain separate fom government: theocracies- even indirect theocracies - not good). True Isrealites (Semitic Jews) are long extinct; living Jews are either Sephardic (Persian descent) or more likely Ashkenazi (Central Asian/Eastern European; mongrels like the rest of us)...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
- Huge transaction fees
You're free to set zero transaction fee and it is still going to be confirmed. This will only change in ~100 years when transaction fees are the only reward for mining.
- Huge power requirements
I'm pretty sure all the banks in the world consume more power.
- painfully slow transactions
It's not that slow actually. Couple minutes - maybe a day, depending on whether you set (and if so how large) a transaction fee.
Now, on the pro side, it's decentralized. If that alone isn't reason enough, I don't know what is.
Re: (Score:1)
That fee is $30 now though right?
So it should get picked up.