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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck China

Price of Bitcoin Plummets Below 'Psychological' $7,000 Level After China Promises Crackdown (forbes.com) 131

Posted by EditorDavid from the cryptocurrency-crackdowns dept.
Friday Forbes wrote that price of Bitcoin had dropped 10% over the previous 24 hours, dipping below the "psychological" $7,000 level. That's after starting the week at over $8,000, and less than a month after it rose to $10,000. Apparently cryptocurrencies had gotten some very bad news from China. Bitcoin rivals ethereum and bitcoin cash have led the market lower [Friday] morning, each losing over 12% of their value in the last 24 hours. Ripple's XRP, litecoin, EOS, bitcoin SV, and binance coin have all also been heavily sold off, wiping billions of dollars from the value of the combined bitcoin and crypto market. [Friday] morning the People's Bank of China has warned it will be cracking down hard on bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading in the country. "Once [bitcoin or cryptocurrency trading] is discovered, it will be disposed of immediately, and it will be prevented from happening early," read a People's Bank of China statement, translated through Google.

The Shanghai-based central bank also warned against conflating the country's interest in blockchain with bitcoin and crypto...

The bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry has been rocked by reports of Chinese police raids on the offices of major bitcoin and crypto exchanges Binance and Bithumb in the country over the last week -- though both have denied the raids took place.
But now that same Forbes columnist asks: Is this when to buy bitcoin? Among other reasons... As well as the May bitcoin halving, which will see the number of bitcoin rewarded to miners cut by half from 12.5 bitcoin to 6.25 bitcoin, bitcoin investors are hopeful next year will bring an increase in the number of bitcoin retail investors and people using bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for payments. Bakkt, a New York Stock Exchange-owner backed bitcoin and cryptocurrency venture, announced last month it plans to launch a consumer app for cryptocurrency purchases in 2020. U.S. coffee chain Starbucks will be its first launch partner, with the company one of the original backers of the crypto project, along with software giant Microsoft and Boston Consulting Group. Meanwhile, Bakkt's bitcoin futures daily volume hit a new all-time high this week, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange, with some $20.3 million across 2,700 futures contracts on Friday.

Many in the traditional financial industry remain unconvinced by bitcoin and crypto, however. This month, former European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet slammed bitcoin and Facebook's crypto project, warning bitcoin is "not real" and not the future of money.
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Price of Bitcoin Plummets Below 'Psychological' $7,000 Level After China Promises Crackdown More

Price of Bitcoin Plummets Below 'Psychological' $7,000 Level After China Promises Crackdown

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  • as the day He returns is imminent.

    • Say what now?

      • Wait a minute, you're not the Jesus X. Christ we worship and await the return of. You're the one on the no-fly list!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Any currency that can drop 10% in one day and 30% in a month is useless.

      • Any currency that can drop 10% in one day
        Like the British Pound did [marketwatch.com] is useless.
        To say nothing of the Swiss franc dropping 40% in a day. [thebalance.com]
        Alas both currencies are now relegated to the dustbin of history.
        Oh no, sorry both are still quite popular it seems.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday November 25, 2019 @08:08AM (#59451478)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • You are comparing monies, with only downside volatility, to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has downside and upside volatility. Bitcoin is a long-term game. Bitcoin is a game of patience. What matters is for Bitcoin to be protected against any kind of attack.
            • You just described an investment, not money. A good currency is a stable currency that buys a loaf of bread for the same number next week as it did last week. Would you want to be paid in shares of your company stock instead of money? Yes many companies give the option to buy some stock with your paycheck, but your paycheck is in your local or sometimes your residence currency. Why, so you can go to the store and buy stuff. CC's are still trading in your currency. You visa bill is in the same currency you s

              • A good currency is a stable currency that buys a loaf of bread for the same number next week as it did last week

                It is fair to criticize Bitcoin as having poor UX, being difficult to understand by many people, and being volatile. You are 100% correct that being a stable unit of account is critical to having a useful currency. This isn't the only important quality of a currency however= fungibility, divisibility, scarcity, Durability, acceptability, and Cognizability are all other important aspects that make a good currency. Bitcoin excels in some of these other qualities which is why it has a inelastic demand specific

          • Bitcoin can't be spent in any meaningful way, so it is not valuable as a currency. Bitcoin only has value because someone out there will exchange other currencies for Bitcoin.

            You are correct insomuch as stability for a less volatile unit of account is a very important quality, among others, that make for a useful currency and Bitcoin is far more volatile than most fiat currencies which make it more difficult to use in some aspects than many fiat currencies. One distinction though is because Bitcoin has better fungibility digitally, it has a inelastic demand specifically as a currency and has a circular economy of people who depend upon it as a currency regardless of this volat

          • Bitcoin suffers from these wild swings routinely.

            Yes.
            But that's not what I responded to was it...

            Any currency that can drop 10% in one day and 30% in a month is useless.

            See where you went wrong?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
          I know a guy who had a seizure once. He got seen by doctors and after being seizure free for years, they gave him a driver's license. I know another guy who has seizures every day. He goes around saying that he should have a license too, because other people have licenses who have had seizures. I bet you don't even understand the difference.
        • The British Pound may be worthless, but it is still the only money we have (and, according to my Zimbabwean friends, worth more than a Zim dollar), because it is in the best interest of the banks that we use them to change our pounds every time we buy our food (in Euros) or sell something to pay for our food (and get paid in Euros).

          Of course granny said "never bite the hand that feeds you" but the Brexiteers never listened to Granny, and listened instead to propaganda promoted by banks (or possibly Aaron B

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Nah currencies do that - look at the pound and the Euro.... the problem is when they do it often - like when it becomes a feature. Then it's just a useless pile of shit that exists to make money for someone and here's a hint - that someone is not you.

  • $20 million is nothing volume (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Sunday November 24, 2019 @10:24PM (#59450458)
    Tiny itty bitty public companies no one ever heard of on the NYSE and Nasdaq move more money daily than that. That's nothing to crow about. It is actually really sad. Anyway, I always thought China was going to take over the whole thing but I guess not. I predict slow grind downward trend (yes with some ups along the way) until there's a sudden break among the hodlr faithful followed by a hard crash to triple digits and eventually zero. It isn't money. It isn't a storage mechanism for cash. It isn't anonymous to the government. A tiny number of places accept purchases but not enough to matter. Why does it still exist?
    • I am wondering the same thing. IMO, the crippling factor about Bitcoin is that the white paper makes claims as to its being decentralized, but if the blockchain continues its growth, only large servers will be able to store and host the blockchain, which in effect centralizes the whole thing. I think people jumped on the bandwagon because they thought it was quick and easy money. Plenty of scams along the way. Anyone remember Bitconnect?

      • only large servers will be able to store and host the blockchain,

        The size of the Bitcoin blockchain with storage space is not the concern as pruning has been available for many years bringing down the blockchain to under 5GB disk space with a full node(not SPV). These full nodes have all the same security and privacy properties as a full archival node (currently ~250GB) and these pruned nodes validate the complete protocol rules and peer blocks just like archival nodes.

      • Bitcoin is designed to operate for decades. The 'size' is properly constrained, we have now more than 50000 full nodes!
      • I Looooooooooooove Bitconnect!!!111

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Comrade Ogilvy ( 1719488 )

      IMO the crippling problem for Bitcoin is that, contrary to the ideological driven propaganda, it is effectively very easy to print more. The more the use cases for Bitcoin are proven valuable, the more competitors will appear. The new competitors often have technical advantages over the older cryptocurrencies. The real value for Bitcoin is implied by the network of active trading (IMNSHO). But new cryptocurrencies can nibble away at that network based on technical superiority, and thereby undercut the o

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by codebonobo ( 2762819 )

        The more the use cases for Bitcoin are proven valuable, the more competitors will appear.

        Those are altcoins, not Bitcoin. You don't suggest that US dollars are hyper inflating when Venezuela prints more fiat do you?

        The new competitors often have technical advantages over the older cryptocurrencies.

        Often they do not. 99% or altcoins are just memes or marketing fluff and have no advantageous and since Bitcoin is an evolving open source project it can adopt any real advantageous.

        I would note that a gov't or multinational financial institution could easily create its own crypto, that has the properties that most consumers actually care about.

        Countries like Canada, Ecuador, and Venezuela have already tried this, but its a pointless marketing exercise that has failed in the past and will continue to fail because fiat is already mostly digital a

        • Those are altcoins, not Bitcoin. You don't suggest that US dollars are hyper inflating when Venezuela prints more fiat do you? Of course all the magic is in the name, The key difference here is what's backing the US Dollar and what you can use it for (paying US taxes), the Venezuela printing more makes no difference to those. Contrast to bitcoin vs some other cryptocurrency. Bitcoin probably wins on the magic name and it's establishment, the point here though is that those are things that can get eroded. If it's true or not currently I've no idea, is is possible, absolutely. The thing which most likely kills it against competition which is what I see your response absolutely dripping in, complacency.

      • You can 'fork' Bitcoin the software, to get something incompatible at the protocol level. But, you can't 'fork' the philosophy. The philosophy is mainly driven by the 'don't trust but verify' mindset. Without the philosophy, the incompatible 'fork' is just equivalent to a classical database under a central authority.

        Bitcoin is the only Scarce Digital Asset available to the humankind!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rho ( 6063 )

        The crippling problem for Bitcoin is that once you've got Bitcoin, you don't have anything.

        You've got a string of numbers that some people will accept, and some others will convert into normal currency for you, but you still just have a string of numbers. If where you store your numbers goes bad, or if somebody hacks it, or BobsBigCoinBasePlanet sends all your Bitcoin to their own wallet and disappears to Uruguay, you are left with nothing. There is no legal framework to which you can appeal. There is no in

  • These cryptocurrency investors are hysterical and hilarious.

    • All "round" numbers are psychological barriers; ooh it broke $5000, it will go to $6000 (or $4000) soon!

      • Oh no, I predict it will never go below the psychological barrier my analysis predicts, of zero

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          I'd give you the funny mod if I ever had a point to give.

          However, I can argue that it's already gone below zero. You'd have to pay me in REAL money before I'd accept your cryptocurrency.

          Fundamental problem with every cryptocurrency is all the others. There is NO limit on numbers or on amusing mathematical games that can be played with numbers to pick out "valuable" ones. Whatever value a cryptocurrency is supposed to have, you have to divide that value by infinity. Cryptocurrency is a scam.

          Actually, I shoul

          • However, I can argue that it's already gone below zero. You'd have to pay me in REAL money before I'd accept your cryptocurrency.

            The price of a currency or asset is determined by a marketplace not solely you. Thus even if you don't accept US dollars, it still has value because others do.

            There is NO limit on numbers or on amusing mathematical games that can be played with numbers to pick out "valuable" ones.

            Bitcoin is valuable because people find it useful for regulatory arbitrage and its scarce. Not quite the same as random numbers as you suggest.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              All I can do is thank you for providing additional evidence of the naivete of advocates of cryptocurrency. Do you have any earthly idea how math works? You're gambling your money on it, right?

              (However, it is also possible that you might be a scammer who's playing the "bank's" position. In that case you're just spewing confusion for the benefit of the suckers. Negative benefit.)

              • Bitcoin is a useful currency for me and saves me a lot of money(I send money internationally and can buy things off amazon for 20% off as two examples) . All currencies and assets that people have investments in have different risks and tradeoffs. I don't advocate people invest 100% in Bitcoin , and many times I tell people they should just use BTC and not invest in it depending upon their circumstances.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by shanen ( 462549 )

                  Okay, thanks for clarifying that you're a BitCoin scammer. We can now regard this "discussion" as terminated.

                  • Bitcoin covers the vacant niche left by the end of the Gold Standard. Bitcoin is freedom money, you may need it, or not: Your choice!

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by shanen ( 462549 )

                      Exactly why do you think that the formula of BitCoin is any better than the infinite number of other formulas available for new cryptocurrencies? Perhaps more to the point, if you can point at any point of superiority, do you fantasize that mathematics is finished and no one will devise a superior mathematical concept tomorrow?

                      If you can't provide any mathematical justifications, then I get to dismiss you as a naive fool or another scamming con artist. If you are not simply a naive dreamer, then I can expla

          • Only Bitcoin can't be manipulated. 'Cryptos' (Outside Bitcoin) are private money under the full control of a few people. They could be done before Bitcoin happened, but before Bitcoin, and because a lot of people don't understand Bitcoin. This kind of scam is now working.

            Bitcoin is the only real thing in the digital space; Everything else is noise!

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              The "noise" is only going to increase.

              You seem to be making some kind of "first mover" argument. Doesn't work unless you seriously believe that math is finished, but I have to report that mathematicians are continuing to discover new results all the time. Even on your first-mover basis you would need to play some kind of definitional games with fiat currencies to pretend there's actual value there.

              My prediction in your case is that you invested in BitCoins and I can only feel sorry for you.

      • Re:Wasn't $4,000 the Psych Level Just Last Year (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday November 25, 2019 @03:46AM (#59450990) Homepage

        All "round" numbers are psychological barriers; ooh it broke $5000

        It actually did, a few months ago. I have no idea where this "$7000" figure comes from.

        No doubt the half-dozen people who own most of the coins will soon manipulate it back up to $10,000 again though. ...and if you're thinking "so this is the right moment to buy??" then you're the product.

        You can buy today, sure, and give your $6000 to the Bitcoin mafia. Will you be able to sell easily when it peaks at $10,000? No, because that same mafia only trades with itself, they don't buy from outsiders. You're relying on being able to sell to idiots who think it's going to $20,000 and competing with the mafia who also want to sell to those idiots and can easily undercut you on price.

        • Good points.

          > I have no idea where this "$7000" figure comes from.

          Just some moron with a keyboard. These days, if it's "on Forbes" it's probably best to ignore it.

          To be fair, if you look at /r/bitcoin, talking about the BTC fork, it's almost entirely fiat-price obsession. The /r/btc discussion, now about the Cash fork, ironically (it started as the uncensored bitcoin sub), is mostly about utility. For "BTC maximalists" to be obsessed with big round numbers isn't actually surprising, even if it's silly

        • You're suggesting the only buyers on the exchanges are mafia?

          • You're suggesting the only buyers on the exchanges are mafia?

            There's two types:
            a) Mafia sock puppets trading between themselves to make it look like the price is going up.
            b) Suckers who believe (a).

  • Of bit coin if a government can track it to their hearts desire like in all the arrests in western countries for illegal transactions or if they can shut it down whenever they want like in china? I've asked and nobody seems to have an answer as to how bitcoin will be able to counter this. Seems like a bunch of trouble, might as well just use dollars if they can't handle this.

    • You appear to have 2 questions/concerns. The first dealing with privacy. Bitcoin is pseudonymous which ultimately means the end user can choose to be transparent or very private depending how they prefer to use it. Most dark market transactions occur in Bitcoin even to this day and are growing year after year. Bitcoin is also rapidly becoming far more private every year with advanced chaumian coinjoin, dandelion, Schnorr Signatures, Taproot, sidechains, and payment channels to name a few advancements.

      Your

      • [quote]One key aspect that many people don't seem to understand is that the act of mining itself has nothing to do with validation of transactions , blocks, or the protocol rules.[/quote]

        You give people too much credit there. Most people's version of how crypto works is far more BS than saying that the miners validate transactions and blocks.

        Most people have a kindergarten level of understanding where they say miners are looking for magic numbers, and those numbers are call bitcoins, and you can sell the ma

  • Psychological value: $X Real value: $0.00 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Sunday November 24, 2019 @10:58PM (#59450508)

    Bitcoin is and has always been devoid of value.

    You can buy it with the expectation that tomorrow someone will want to buy it for more.
    You can sell it with the expectation that tomorrow someone won't want to buy it for what it's selling today.

    Neither is "worth", "value" as it has neither. It's an option on a future on a non-product.

    Invest wisely.

    E
    P.S. Bitcoin speculative purchase and sales isn't investing. It's gambing... and unlike poker, blackjack, etc., the odds are up in the air.

    • Yeah bro, I understand. I didn't mine bitcoin in the early days either, and I'm still bitter about it.
      • I remember downloading the client, starting it up and thinking 'this is gonna take all night to generate one coin,' 'all this for one or two cents?' and promptly quitting the client. Yea, if I knew then what I know now....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You have been able to buy goods and services with bitcoin for years. Okay, a lot of those goods and services are illegal and paying your bar tab with it is totally impractical, but it none the less has real-world value.

      I pay for (legal) services with bitcoin I mined myself, so it's pretty well anonymous. As long as the services don't need any identifying information about you it's okay.

  • Dogecoin is still going strong, it still has not lost ANY value, as one Dogecoin is still worth 1 DOGE.
  • It’s sure to make a come back soon...

  • Transaction confirmation time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday November 24, 2019 @11:59PM (#59450616) Journal

    people using bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for payments

    Using bitcoin to make purchases is only viable if the transaction doesn't need to happen quickly. The amount of time required to confirm a bitcoin transaction is an unknown. It is variable, depending on a number of factors, the biggest of which is the number of other transactions that also need to be confirmed at that moment. From what I've read, the *average* is 10 minutes, but during times of heavy demand, it can take 16 hours for bitcoin transactions to be confirmed.

    That pretty much narrows it down to purchases that can take days to process the payment, which I would think greatly limits how useful bitcoin is for most kinds of purchases.

    • My transactions confirm instantly and fees are free to a fraction of a penny with Bitcoin lightning wallet for the last 2 years. Onchain merchants have been accepting 0 confirmation transactions for many years as well so your comment doesn't make any sense.
    • Bitcoin is not a payment system. Lightning is the payment system of Bitcoin. And Lightning is fast very fast!

      Don't forget the 'Gresham's law' (bad money drives out good). You will always use your USD first! This is an incentive issue.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Not sure if "afraid" is the right word.

      (China) (waves hand angrily)

      (price of bitcoin jumps)

      (China): "Na hen youyisi..."

  • Negatives Rates vs Sound Money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by slashways ( 4172247 ) on Monday November 25, 2019 @05:48AM (#59451178)
    Negative rates are the new normal. Negative rates were not possible under the Gold Standard.

    F.A. Hayek in 1984: "I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop."

    Bitcoin is our answer!

    You can 'fork' Bitcoin the software, to get something incompatible at the protocol level. But, you can't 'fork' the philosophy. The philosophy is mainly driven by the 'don't trust but verify' mindset. Without the philosophy, the incompatible 'fork' is just equivalent to a classical database under a central authority.
    • Gold was money, and the Gold standard is over. Money is a winner take all situation. If you want something that can succeed where Gold failed. You want something without any angle of attack, and no single point of failure. So, you want something fully, and genuinely decentralized, without any company or leader to sue. You want something that can run for decades, and that will resist any kind of attack, internal or external. You will choose a harder monetary policy than Gold. This will give a massive incenti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      If you think negative interest rates "were not possible" under the gold standard, then you don't understand anything about the monetary system.

      Negative rates were totally possible under the gold standard because the value of gold itself fluxuates, like anything else.

      All a negative rate means is that you have to pay for the privilege of stashing your money somewhere because the person who is doing the stashing is no longer making enough residual value off of it to be worth their while to stash it. It was, an

  • I'm willing to bet that China is driving the price down so it can send out numerous trolls to buy it. Then they'll suddenly have a "revelation" about how good Bitcoin is, which will drive the price up..... they'll sell. Then they will crack down again. Rinse repeat. It's China.

  • interesting stock (Score:3)

    by blackest_k ( 761565 ) on Monday November 25, 2019 @09:44AM (#59451850) Homepage Journal

    Bitcoin is gambling but so is any stock. Elon Musk lost over half a billion on tesla stock when the windows broke but it's going to recover. Bitcoin is likely to recover and gain some value too.
    The killer for stocks and shares is fees, even if the market moves in your favour the fees will wipe out your gains if you don't have enough invested. Maybe bitcoin is a reasonable game to play if you only put money in you can afford to lose.
       

  • oh, fake money evaporated, imagine that... shocking..
    There are 4 miners in China that control 50%. It's a manipulation scheme, if you buy into it, you;re an idiot.
    https://www.investopedia.com/n... [investopedia.com]

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