Bitcoin Hits Highest Levels In Almost Three Years (reuters.com) 78
Digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago. From a report on Reuters: Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Reason isn't only India (Score:1)
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That's the best reason to buy bitcoin (Score:1)
I don't know who wants this stuff other than the criminals
But that's exactly the point; buying BitCoin is a lot like being able to buy into a mutual fund solely dedicated to criminal profits!
It's the ultimate hedge, the worse off society gets the more rewarding crime (and therefore your Bitcoin) becomes!
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That's bollocks. I was living in France when it happened and there were strict limits on changing Francs to Euro well in advance of the actual switch; they knew there was plenty of money stuffed in mattresses & teapots.
It caused a short term boost to home renovation & antiques market.
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There are many well documented use cases. Just take the time to understand it. Your comment makes as much sense as saying "the Internet is only useful for criminals."
Re:I guess there is demand (Score:5, Informative)
All money is fake by definition. We all agree those paper bills cost something when in fact it's just worthless paper. What's more, there's hugely more electronic money and various forms of money derivatives (like shares, debts, obligations, etc. etc. etc. read this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) right now than real banknotes. I guess it's 100 to 1 nowadays if not more.
So real money is only 1% tangible while bitcoin is 0% tangible. Not a huge difference for me.
Try buying something (Score:2)
So real money is only 1% tangible while bitcoin is 0% tangible. Not a huge difference for me.
That's because you're not trying to actually buy anything with bitcoins. Go try to pay for your Big Mac at McDonald's with bitcoin and see if you can tell the difference.
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And the advantage to paying in bitcoin is?
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Sticking it to the man!
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So real money is only 1% tangible while bitcoin is 0% tangible. Not a huge difference for me.
You live in a bubble, if the difference is so small to you. (1) The USD is backed by assets, even if not directly as it was when we had the gold standard. (2) The USD is also backed by binding explicit and implicit promises that 300 million US citizens will accept it. In comparison bitcoin is explicitly backed by nothing, and no one on the planet has made a binding promise to accept bitcoin.
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> All money is fake by definition.
That's partially incorrect.
* Hard currencies have an intrinsic value. i.e. Especially the metals.
* Soft currencies -- you are correct -- they are completely artificial.
However, this isn't telling the entire picture.
There are 4 Levels of money. That is, money can represent 4 different things:
1. Barter
If you have physical good I desire, and vice versa, we can trade. The *thing itself* is money -- ANYTHING can have value -- depending on who wants it. Now this becomes impr
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> All money is fake by definition. That's partially incorrect. * Hard currencies have an intrinsic value. i.e. Especially the metals.
Except in practice this "intrinsic value" is a laughable myth, especially the metals:
1. Almost all of that "intrinsic" value is due to it being perceived as luxurious. Most people don't even like gold-colored jewelry; so-called "white gold" (i.e. gold that's been adulterated with other metals to hide its real color) is more popular. How is the totally psychological value of "I feel teh warm fuzzies because this ring is REAL!" any more "inherent" than the warm fuzzies you get from knowing you have 20 $10
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I don't know who wants this stuff other than the criminals who keep trying to lock up everyone's data and demand ransom. Fake money? Who wants it?
It is quite handy as a payment token that transcend international boundaries and VISA blockades. I can buy things from for example Russia and pay with bitcoins where I cannot pay with a credit card. All perfectly legal as per the Berne convention.
I hold about 1.8 bitcoins. The other .2 is what I spent over the past few years. I wouldn't call it a high volume thing. But it's handy.
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Because this time it's different!
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In before the uneducated opinions. (Score:2)
They are easy to spot, they include mentions of beanie babies, tulips and lists of "FACT"'s.
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Sorry, you're right, I forgot to add baseless ad hominem to the list. (you may need to look it up)
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"Your the uneducated one."
YOUR and YOU'RE.
/facepalm
You said that not me. I was just polite enough not to divert into your bad grammar.
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I wasn't insulting your grammar, you were.
Very rarely have I seen a slashdot troll call himself a "ignorant retard" though, it could be a first. Congratulations.
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Calling it bad is just factual. Besides, I did not even bring it up in the first place. We all make the occasion error and it was not germain to the discussion. Trying to win arguments by pointing out minor spelling and grammar errors is really only the resort of the week minded.
If I called you a "ignorant retard" because of it that would be insulting.
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Yeah, don't let the facts
What facts?
Too bad it's volatile as hell (Score:2)
Since there's no one standing behind it.
Of course even major currencies sometimes go down (like it happened to the Russian ruble after 1991) but it's still a very rare occurrence, unlike Bitcoin where any major event can trigger a colossal loss in its value because a lot of bitcoin owners will rush to cash their bitcoins when they see something worrisome happening thus they will accelerate its fall even further.
Also there are other purely technical reasons why Bitcoin is not a stable currency and most likel
Re: Too bad it's volatile as hell (Score:2, Insightful)
Clearly you haven't seen the USD ten year chart.
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Re:Just when I think things are getting better... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh come on, you have to see that the blockchain cryptomancy technology here will lead to a deep AI machine big learning data revolution and finally give us the open cloud paradigm for internet of dark web things computing we've always dreamed of.
(Since Poe's Law is a thing, yes, this is in jest).
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>So now who's ignorant?
You, you mindless cultist. You know how to parrot the Bitcoin propaganda like any number of other morons hoping to get rich quick for nothing while understanding precisely none of the reasons Bitcoin is a giant, steaming, pile of crap that never had the potential to work for social, technological, business, and economic reasons.
Or you're not ignorant and believe that if you lie hard enough and often enough, you can pump the price and some newb will buy you out and that's good, rig
Please stop (Score:1)
As a bitcoiner, this isn't news
Stop posting every time it moves
B$7500 (Score:2)
you betcha...
Pump and Dump (Score:4, Interesting)
having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Don't forget mentioning that it may actually make up all the losses from 2014.
I like the idea of Bitcoin. It's fantastic.
But in reality it's still trading more like a commodity than a currency. Sort of like how Susan B. Anthony dollar coins are more hoarded than used as actual currency.
Currency is a type of commodity (Score:3)
I like the idea of Bitcoin. It's fantastic.
Not if you actually understand finance and risk it isn't. Bitcoin is an interesting experiment in some ways but as a practical matter for real world use it's rather clumsy, risky and impractical. It's flawed in so many ways I barely know where to begin. The only thing about it that I really think might eventually prove valuable is the block chain technology which has applications far beyond bitcoin.
But in reality it's still trading more like a commodity than a currency.
Currencies ARE commodities. The term commodity is specifically used for an economic good or service when t
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"Not if you actually understand finance and risk it isn't"
Well, I would hesitate admitting to knowing much about finance (despite holding a degree saying I supposedly do) but I'm pretty confident there are many people out there that really know their stuff and still find it fascinating
"Bitcoin is an interesting experiment in some ways but as a practical matter for real world use it's rather clumsy, risky and impractical. It's flawed in so many ways I barely know where to begin"
Flawed it is and undoubtedly s
Dumping Cash (Score:2)
Shameless pump and dump promotion (Score:2)
Did I wander into the Yahoo financial message boards? WTF? This is damn near a copy paste of every penny stock spam in my spam folder.
Sucks for the guy with the missing hard drive (Score:2)
Major bummer for the guy who had 10,000 bitcoins on a hard drive and threw it away.
India explanation (Score:2)
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They're trying to find a way to hoard wealth that can't be taken away by the stroke of a pen (like what just happened).
The issue is people are working under the table and the government is trying to increase revenue by making it harder to dodge taxes.
Keeping money in cash where it can't be traced easily is how they were doing it.
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If government is cracking on tax dodging, then how can they consider bitcoin as safe?
Because Bitcoin isn't a form of currency (or commodity, if your see it as such) that the government has any direct control over. It's not looked as a "real money" enough to be tracked that way.
In order to be used, money will have to be converted back into rupees, and this conversion business can be regulated. Government can monitor it for tax dodge, or even tax it on its own.
I'm not too familiar with the Bitcoin exchange system, but I think you're overestimating the Indian government's abilities here. BitCoins can come from all sorts of places besides unreported income. People can resell items they already own (and therefore already paid tax on the income to purchase) for BitCoins, they c
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I think you're overestimating the Indian government's abilities here
Indeed, the government has little abilities to regulate bitcoin exchange in its own. But it has some teeth when bitcoin hits the local economy, either when bitcoins are converted into local currency, or when they are used for domestic financial transactions.
In both case, regulation can uncover actor's identity and force cooperation with the tax administration. In such a situation, you can still remain anonymous and dodge tax for foreign income that is spend outside of the country, but I guess that is not th
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Indeed, the government has little abilities to regulate bitcoin exchange in its own. But it has some teeth when bitcoin hits the local economy, either when bitcoins are converted into local currency, or when they are used for domestic financial transactions.
Not all BitCoin exchanges are under Indian government jurisdiction.
What's to stop someone from getting rupees from an exchange in China, or Russia, etc?
And you're still trying to apply a geographical identity to something on the Internet.
What makes a BitCoin transaction a "domestic financial transaction"? The nationality of the people? Whether the goods/services were rendered on Indian soil? Where the wallets are located in meatspace? None of these are things that can be easily tracked by the government bec