Bitcoin Exchange BTCChina Says To Stop Trading, Sparking Further Slide (reuters.com) 70
Several Slashdot readers have shared this Reuters story: Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCChina said on Thursday that it would stop all trading from Sept. 30, setting off a further slide in the value of the cryptocurrency that left it over 30 percent away from the record highs it hit earlier in the month. China has boomed as a cryptocurrency trading location in recent years, as investors and speculators flocked to domestic exchanges that formerly allowed users to conduct trades for free, boosting demand. But that has prompted regulators in the country to crack down on the cryptocurrency sector, in a bid to stamp out potential financial risks as consumers pile into a highly risky and speculative market that has seen unprecedented growth this year. Just hours after BTCChina announced its closure, Chinese news outlet Yicai reported that the country plans to shut down all bitcoin exchanges by the end of September, citing financial sources in Shanghai.
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Wow! it's over $3,000/coin now last I heard it was only up to $2,700.
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China is punishing North Korea. (Score:3, Interesting)
My best guess based on the available data is that China was previously propping up North Korea using BTC, and these exchanges were a politically good way of doing that so they allowed them to exist.. but now since North Korea is waving its Nukes around, they are closing them down as part of withholding payments and support as a punishment tactic.
Expect more China BTC exchanges to shut down as they centralize power and control.
Re:China is punishing North Korea. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose that's possible; but I think it's far more likely that the government is just trying to reduce capital flight. People in China who have money are always looking for ways to offshore it, and the government is always looking for ways to stop that.
Cronies, thugs, and dictators, oh my! (Score:2, Interesting)
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It's like they don't have any faith in their government or something...
But it's unheard of in the Capitalist States of America - no wealthy individuals using tax havens there.
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Yet, despite the "crash"... (Score:2, Interesting)
Bitcoin is still up 456 percent over the past 12 months = Things That Make You Go Hmmm
Indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people were 'Hmmm'ing all the way to bankruptcy in 2007 when their house was 300% of the purchase price and -30% a year later. Surely bitcoin couldn't suffer the same fate as that extremely secure, tangible, asset.
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A lot of people were 'Hmmm'ing all the way to bankruptcy in 2007 when their house was 300% of the purchase price and -30% a year later. Surely bitcoin couldn't suffer the same fate as that extremely secure, tangible, asset.
Bitcoin is like gold. Every so often, just like gold, it goes up wildly. then just as quickly, it falls wildly, and a bunch of pretend money disappears overnight. People lose their asses, and sell at a loss. Smart move people
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A stable value like that is exactly what is required of a currency for people to accept it and start using it like a currency. When 'currencies' like Tulip Bulbs or Beanie Babies start swinging wildly in value, they are just vehicles for speculators.
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I think you're right, there's no question there's a level of speculative activity going on in this realm. However, the interesting thing is that with the concept of "programmable money", you can create any cryptocurrency with any economic or monetary model you want. If your goal is to create a "stable value" currency, you could do that. There are some, as a matter of fact, like Tether. Bitcoin is more like gold than a currency as was pointed out, so while traditional gold is less convenient in the moder
Re:Indeed! (Score:4, Interesting)
Gold has at least been around for a long time, and has investment value because it is so easily recognizable and assayable, and has established value in every culture.
In Roman times, an ounce of gold traded for the best suit of clothes. After two thousand years of inflation, deflation and manipulation - it still does.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Interesting)
Gold has at least been around for a long time, and has investment value because it is so easily recognizable and assayable, and has established value in every culture.
In Roman times, an ounce of gold traded for the best suit of clothes. After two thousand years of inflation, deflation and manipulation - it still does.
Yet many people have lost life investments by buying gold at the wrong time. It is way too volatile.If You buy high and sell low, as so many do, that doesn't do much for you.
I actually have some precious metal investments, made in 1978. If I were to sell them today, I would make about 500 dollars per ounce. That's actually a loss, adjusted for inflation. http://www.macrotrends.net/133... [macrotrends.net] So they sit, I don't even think about them unless in conversations like this.
Anyhow, if you buy low, and sell before you think they've hit their peak, you might do okay. But most people don't think that way. On the way up, they are counting their money, and congratulating themselves for how smart they are. Then after it peaks, they hang on, because it has to go back up, right? Then after it sinks below what they paid for it, they hold on in the forlorn hope it will rebound. Then they sell it at a big loss.
My guess is that if we are taking the apocalyptic fear version the investors trot out, yes, when the wheels fall off, you can buy a loaf of beard and some bullets for some gold. My hope is that I don't survive whatever causes civilization to collapse like that. Just bury those Krugerrands or Englehard gold bars in a concrete box in the back yard, and when the radiation dies down, dig it up and make your way in the brave new world.
Re: Indeed! (Score:2)
Dang you'd have to be really hungry. But at least now we know Richard Stallman won't starve.
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Dang you'd have to be really hungry. But at least now we know Richard Stallman won't starve.
Damn autocorrect! But funny as hell sometimes!
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Horses have at least been around for a long time. This 'automobile' is just a fad.
Congratulations to Bitcoin (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not yet. When it's an actual threat, China's going to spin up 50% + 1 of the mining nodes and wreck shit.
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If this were to happen, there's always the option to change the proof of work algorithm which would completely nullify the hundreds of millions they'd probably have to spend to do this kind of attack in one instant.
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It is extremely unlike that anything in China gets broke.
As far as I know it is the only government that is running since decades with a positive balance.
China as an "industrial social complex" owns half the world in terms of land they buy here and there.
They are probably the biggest owners of land, railroads, mines etc. in Africa.
http://thediplomat.com/2016/08... [thediplomat.com]
Getting money out of China, if you want so, is easy. You simply do a wire transfer to an over seas account. Just like in any other country.
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Getting money out of China, if you want so, is easy. You simply do a wire transfer to an over seas account. Just like in any other country.
Up to $50,000 per year [reuters.com], yes. Above that - you need a tax permit and register your capital as well and inform the Government of why you are doing the transfer. So I guess if you want to take 20 years to move your $1 millon overseas, you can - but going to Guangzhou, buying a few hundred thousand dollars worth of gold and a $500,000 jade bracelet and walking across the border to Hong Kong is a bit easier than a wire transfer.
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Hongkong belongs to China now, so there could be a catch :)
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Only the first part is correct, HK is a "China" as much as Taiwan is is bollocks.
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Nobody keeps their assets in yuan who has a choice.
Says you.
30%? (Score:1)
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>And this is why people see this as a volatile speculative commodity, and not a currency
Well, there's ALSO the transaction rate limit, the ridiculous transaction fees to compete for a reasonable transaction time, and the practical centralization of the 'decentralized' system with a handful of Chinese mining concerns. And the lack of vendor adoption. And the difficulty using it securely. And the ease with which access can be irrevocably lost. And the baked-in deflationary economic model.
But other than
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The transaction costs are a tiny fraction of what a bank or credit card processor charges to send Monopoly bank money.
And you keep your coins in cold storage. They're impossible to steal unless someone finds your wallet, kidnaps you, and tortures you for your pin, and even then the blockchain will show exactly who did that to you.
It's a technologically better form of money, far more efficient for moving large sums across borders. For this reason, it's only going up in the long term. If it's up 400 percen
Re:30%? (Score:5, Informative)
>The transaction costs are a tiny fraction of what a bank or credit card processor charges to send Monopoly bank money.
Sure, as long as you're buying a car. Of course, you also have to find someone selling a car for bitcoin... Now tell me what it costs to buy your groceries, go to the movies, or get a cup of coffee?
>And you keep your coins in cold storage.
Uh-huh. And your average person keeps their keys where? On a computer, because nobody's going to write their access keys down on paper and lock them in a fire safe. In fact, they'll keep their keys in a wallet on their smartphone, where they'll be stolen by hackers. Or they'll use a web wallet, where - in the event they're not defrauded by the wallet provider - a keylogger steals their access codes. Hence the very popular Bitcoin phrase "Sorry for your loss".
>and even then the blockchain will show exactly who did that to you.
HAHAHHAHHAHAHA. Yep, you can trace the coins to the current keys with authority. Now match that to a person without the power of a major government to help you. And if the coins are tumbled, or even just cashed out in a different legal jurisdiction, what are you going to do? Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, it's in the design.
>It's a technologically better form of money, far more efficient for moving large sums across borders.
If you find someone willing to accept it on the far side.
>imagine what it will be like in a few years when millions more people grok the tech.
If millions more ADOPTED bitcoin, it'd crash instantly, since it's totally unscalable.
>Most Slashdotters will miss the boat. Not my problem.
Well, your ignorance and stupidity aren't mine, but here we are. Maybe you'll get lucky and BLASH. Maybe you'll hold on to your 'store of value' as it all crashes. But you've got your blissful ignorance and faith to make you feel superior, so you've got that going for you.
Maybe move out of mom's basement and get a real job. Sunlight's good for you.
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> >The transaction costs are a tiny fraction of what a bank or credit card processor charges to send Monopoly bank money.
> Sure, as long as you're buying a car. Of course, you also have to find someone selling a car for bitcoin... Now tell me what it costs to buy your groceries, go to the movies, or get a cup of coffee?
Bitcoin is still generally cheaper for purchases over $30 to pay in Bitcoin even with rising transaction costs. Transactions are getting more expensive for more limited purchases, t
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Bitcoin's had long enough to develop some share of economic activity and failed, because it is in no way superior to cash, a debit card, or a credit card, no matter how much you feel justified in prosthelytizing. It's coming up on a decade soon, and the best you can do is say, "I can use it to buy gift cards that I then use to buy stuff". In other words, it's good for low-level money laundering and illicit purchases. Yay.
Youtube, on the other hand, was a superior option and gained market share as a resu
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Most Slashdotters don't sell Amway, either.
Re:30%? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a technologically better form of money, far more efficient for moving large sums across borders.
Really? What, a 3% surcharge (1.5% on each end) is good? I pay $15 flat rate for a wire transfer, no limit. Did one yesterday to a vendor, $380,000 for $15. I guess Bitcoin charging $12,000 would be better than $15?
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A common exchange rate is somewhere between 0% to 0.25% depending on how the exchange is done (market maker vs taker), and volume. See for example: https://www.gdax.com/fees/BTC-... [gdax.com]
With the rise of technologies like lightning network and decentralized exchanges, we might see even better exchange rates if you can swap across different currencies easily.
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Bitcoin. When you want your money to have all the safety and stability of a third world country.
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"the blockchain will show exactly who did that to you."
The same blockchain that makes it so easy to nail a ransomware developer?
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I beg to differ. While I am of the opinion that Bitcoin is a volatile speculative commodity, I don't think that its being 30% down as a result of closing down exchanges serves well to make the point.
The reason I'm making this point is simple. A commonly accepted fact is that the surge Bitcoin has experienced over the past year is a result of the increased activity in China, including Chinese miners and Chinese exchanges. All of these Chinese persons, for whatever reason, invested in Bitcoin relying on the c
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Well, it can be both. People do, after all, speculate in ordinary currency. An hour a day spent in currency speculation made John Maynard Keynes a rich man.
The whole point of Bitcoin is that governments don't control it (although this event demonstrates that this doesn't mean governments can't take actions that alter its value). This sounds like utopia to some people, but it's got its drawbacks. One of them is that there's no central bank taking actions to stabilize the value of the currency. If you
How to determine the cash flow through bitcoin? (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be interesting to see the transaction ledger that would show the actual movement of one specific exchange purchase of a bitcoin, and then show the second transaction where this specific bitcoin is transferred to another party in exchange for another kind of money or a tangible item like food.
The problem for us as spectators is to get a picture of some bitcoin transactions with the seller and the exchange shown. Then another picture with the exchange and the buyer shown. Then a third picture wit
On The Internet (Score:1)
There is an old saying from the 90's. "On The Internet Nobody Knows You Are A Dog." [knowyourmeme.com].
That can be revised now: "On The Internet, Nobody Needs To Know Your Dog Has $1,000,000 Worth Of Bitcoins."
Quite frankly this is just a buying opportunity... (Score:2, Interesting)
We knew it was coming for years. I had guestimated it would get close to $6,000 / Bitcoin before it crashed to $3,000-4,000 as it did during the last major crash (that is it lost about half its value or so). There is a reason I accept Bitcoin in my business and spend Bitcoin, but don't invest in Bitcoin. Most who were holding Bitcoin should still be doing VERY well in spite of this crash though despite that I'm not investing in it.
I've done very well in terms of profiting off of having and using Bitcoin bec