Bitcoin Surges 50% in Just One Month. CNN Ponders 'Insane' Record Run (cnn.com) 190
The price of Bitcoin increased 50% — in the last four weeks.
Now priced at $26,579, "Bitcoin is crashing — upward," quips CNN Business: The digital currency has a market value north of $500 billion. Think Bitcoin is just a fad? It's worth more than Visa or Mastercard. Or Walmart...
Its rapid rise has been remarkable — or insane, depending on your appetite for risk. But there's some logic to the run-up: Investors are pouring money into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies during the Covid-19 pandemic as the Federal Reserve sent interest rates near zero (and expects to keep them there for several more years), severely weakening the US dollar. That makes bitcoin, comparatively, an attractive currency. There's a set limit to the number of bitcoins on the planet, and investors believe that once the supply runs out, the digital coin's value can only increase.
Also aiding in bitcoin's soaring valuation: Big, name-brand investors are stockpiling it, and huge consumer companies are embracing it. That's adding a dose of validity and appeal to cryptocurrency for mainstream investors. For example, a top executive at BlackRock [the world's largest asset manager, with $7.81 trillion in assets under management] recently said the cryptocurrency can replace gold, and Square and PayPal have both embraced bitcoin.
The article also includes some advice from Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of the global investment firm Skybridge Capital (who was also, for 10 days, White House Communications Director): Scaramucci said people have begun to accept bitcoin — and since it appears in so few portfolios, it has plenty of room to grow. Still, bitcoin is a volatile asset and will be a risky holding if you invest in it. "This thing has a tendency to crash up," he said. "It is due for a correction, and these corrections can be violent." Scaramucci said bitcoin could suddenly tumble 20% to 50%. "You have to be very cautious," he added.
But he also highlighted bitcoin's staying power over the course of the past decade: If you took $1 and put 99 cents of it in cash and a penny in bitcoin, that investment strategy would have outperformed $1 invested in the S&P 500 over the last 10 years, he noted.
"Bitcoin's best days are ahead of it, but it's going to be volatile and I think people need to be prepared for it," Scaramucci told CNN Business.
Now priced at $26,579, "Bitcoin is crashing — upward," quips CNN Business: The digital currency has a market value north of $500 billion. Think Bitcoin is just a fad? It's worth more than Visa or Mastercard. Or Walmart...
Its rapid rise has been remarkable — or insane, depending on your appetite for risk. But there's some logic to the run-up: Investors are pouring money into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies during the Covid-19 pandemic as the Federal Reserve sent interest rates near zero (and expects to keep them there for several more years), severely weakening the US dollar. That makes bitcoin, comparatively, an attractive currency. There's a set limit to the number of bitcoins on the planet, and investors believe that once the supply runs out, the digital coin's value can only increase.
Also aiding in bitcoin's soaring valuation: Big, name-brand investors are stockpiling it, and huge consumer companies are embracing it. That's adding a dose of validity and appeal to cryptocurrency for mainstream investors. For example, a top executive at BlackRock [the world's largest asset manager, with $7.81 trillion in assets under management] recently said the cryptocurrency can replace gold, and Square and PayPal have both embraced bitcoin.
The article also includes some advice from Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of the global investment firm Skybridge Capital (who was also, for 10 days, White House Communications Director): Scaramucci said people have begun to accept bitcoin — and since it appears in so few portfolios, it has plenty of room to grow. Still, bitcoin is a volatile asset and will be a risky holding if you invest in it. "This thing has a tendency to crash up," he said. "It is due for a correction, and these corrections can be violent." Scaramucci said bitcoin could suddenly tumble 20% to 50%. "You have to be very cautious," he added.
But he also highlighted bitcoin's staying power over the course of the past decade: If you took $1 and put 99 cents of it in cash and a penny in bitcoin, that investment strategy would have outperformed $1 invested in the S&P 500 over the last 10 years, he noted.
"Bitcoin's best days are ahead of it, but it's going to be volatile and I think people need to be prepared for it," Scaramucci told CNN Business.
Stop with the pumping already (Score:5, Insightful)
Start dumping and stop the inane insane hype. It massively gets on my nerves.
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Re:Stop with the pumping already (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ignore it. Or is it too hard?
Unfortunately, economic crisis have this ugly habit of turning themselves into somebody elses problems.
Look at the sub-prime mortgage crash of a few years ago. What do I care if banks are making housing loans to folks who can never pay them back?
Oops, the taxpayers end up having to pay to clean up the mess.
Or look at General Motors. If their electric vehicle strategy goes tits up, guess who will pay for the bailout . . . ?
investment vehicle, or currency? Which? (Score:4, Interesting)
From the summary: "There's a set limit to the number of bitcoins on the planet,... Big, name-brand investors are stockpiling it..."
If there's a set amount and "big" investors are stockpiling it (and hence taking it out of circulation)... it can't be a currency. The point of currency is that it circulates.
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How would investing work with bitcoin? it has no underlying value. Its returns are based solely on speculation.
Even mortgage-backed investments theoretically had real-estate underlying them.
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Speculation is the heart of so many investment vehicles out there. Why invest in gold? It has little inherent value and is based solely on speculation? Why invest in the futures market, rather than the market products themselves? Why invest in slice-and-dice overvalued mortgages? Speculation!
Most of the people I know who love to talk lots about how they like to go to casinos all the time and how they've got a good system going are the same subset of people I know who are actively trading stocks through
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Bitcoin was built to have this "investment" trajectory. At a certain point, all of the Bitcoin will be "mined", and no more will be made. At that point, people need to get Bitcoin from someone else. This creates an artificial shortage. By controlling the supply, a speculator can "make" money.
The entire problem with this theory is that if someone else comes up with a cheaper competitor, then there is nothing to stop someone from dumping bitcoin in favour of the competitor. This will cause a crash. Thi
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The underlying value of bitcoin is it's liquidity in anonymous markets. A bitcoin is worth X KG of cocaine\ecstasy\LSD because that is how many equivalent dollars it would require for me to acquire the bitcoin. So it's not just speculation that gives it value. If I want anonymous transactions, I use bitcoin. The value my dealer ascribes to that coin depends on how much he can sell it for after the transaction is complete. He may choose to sit on it, which is where your speculation comes in. But at the time
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Re: investment vehicle, or currency? Which? (Score:3)
Something is a currency if it can be used as a reserve for value, plus can be used to make payments, plus widely accepted. The Sec ruled itâ(TM)s not a security, and nobody should confuse it with an investment. But as with any currency, supply and demand still holds.
To some extent, bitcoinâ(TM)s last surge, adding to a few weeks before that is that...Ripple is considered an investment, and thatâ(TM)s why you see a lawsuit being brought by the SEC arguing it is an unregistered security.
Note th
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But Bitcoin is like a pyramid scheme in many ways. Those who got in and mined it early could be extremely wealthy, even though trying mining it today is futile. That's the primary flaw in so many cryptocurrencies, they are not backed up through any sort of hard work but instead through marketing by those who get in early trying to dupe more people into following along.
For me, a good currency replacement would involve donating value into a big pool and then the cryptocurrency derives from that Ie, in the
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Something is a currency if it can be used as a reserve for value, plus can be used to make payments, plus widely accepted.
You just said three things. One of them was true.
Something is a currency if it
1. can be used as a reserve for value. No. That may be useful, but that is not what a currency is. A currency is a medium of exchange. You may use a medium of exchange as a reserve for value, but that is not what defines a medium of exchange.
2. plus can be used to make payments Correct. That is the definition of a currency.
3. plus widely accepted. Nope. That is extremely valuable for a currency, but a currency is a curre
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As predicted by monetary theory.
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Just ignore it. Or is it too hard?
Never just ignore manias. They act as a guide to better investments.
Bitcoin is being bid up because investors see national currencies bending under the strain of massive printing of money. This is a time to buy traditional hard assets.
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That's the dumbest right-wing knee-jerk you could imagine.
Now look up what the economic indicators for trust in central banks are, and how they're doing.
(In reality, central banks are pumping huge amounts of money into the economy, leading investors to throw money anywhere and almost everywhere)
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This is another scam that's out there, and it's being pushed hard on the far right spam lists - "The economy is collapsing, we'll soon be in a socialist dystopia, so buy our buy our gold, buy our silver, buy our antique coins." And I see people falling to this con.
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I mean, was he talking "traditional hard assets" as in real estate or gold? I'm not sure which makes sense now, but they are very different arguments and I don't know if he's saying "borrow at low rates" or "the dollar will never exist, gold and gunpowder are the only currencies."
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If you're an optimist, buy gold; if you're a pessimist, buy lead.
Re: Stop with the pumping already (Score:2)
That is as stupid an argument as telling it to somebody who just read that famous sign:
"It is illegal to read this sign."
Do you expect everyone to just selectively open their eyes to stories that they could tell were not about Bitcoin pumping... *with closed eyes*??
And this gets +3, Insightful... ...
Slashdot is truly dumber than a sea sponge today
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What are you talking about? I get investment advice from my think tank of sea sponges!
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Google news promoted cointelegraph to me for while. I tried disfavoring the source, or blacklisting it, but it kept flaring up.
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Bitcoin are modern tulips (Score:2)
Many people made money in the 1630s and many more lost fortunes [wikipedia.org]. The trick is knowing when to get out.
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Start dumping and stop the inane insane hype. It massively gets on my nerves.
You poor thing.
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> Start dumping and stop the inane insane hype. It massively gets on my nerves.
The horse and donkey people never did like cars.
Whale oil people never did care much for e-lek-tricitee did they
I wonder how long people keep feeling pissy and left out of bitcoin before they realize thats its not "bitcoin going up" but "the dollar going down" that is the real story.
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Still the strange part is that inflation hasn't zoomed up. People have been waiting for this shoe to drop for a couple decades now.
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Bitcoin is not structured in such a way that it can be used massively at scale. I know you think just anyone can use it, no matter how technically illiterate. But right now the major market for bitcoin is criminal enterprise, tax dodgers, and money laundering. You few trying to use it legitimately are a very tiny minority.
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My mother is scammed left and right, she believes everything if it's online or over a phone. I have to continually remind her that if someone asks for payment via bitcoin that it is not a legitimate investment or service. I also remind her that bitcoin is only used by 3 types of people:
1) criminals (including scammers and tax dodgers)
2) ultra-libertarians
3) high risk investors
The Mooch is not to be trusted here. His investment firm is self labeled as an *alternative* investment. This means ultra high risk
Inane commentary (Score:5, Insightful)
Think Bitcoin is just a fad? It's worth more than Visa or Mastercard. Or Walmart...
Comments like that are idiotic. While it’s current market value is incredibly high, that has nothing to do with whether it’s a fad or not. It could well still be a fad and its price could drop 95% next week.
I personally don’t see a purchase of Bitcoin as an investment, but rather a gamble based on the gullibility of others - a sort of Ponzi scheme, if you will. But to each their own - just go into it with open eyes.
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a gamble based on the gullibility of others
I'd say trust or eagerness of others instead of gullibility, but good advice otherwise. No value is being created here, all of the "value" of Bitcoin comes from the money people have spent on them, not a penny more or less*. And no, that is not at all the same as stocks or currency.
*) Sure, maybe a few pennies. BTC is used as a means to transfer money after all. Chiefly between crooks and victims.
Re:Inane commentary (Score:5, Insightful)
BTC is used as a means to transfer money after all. Chiefly between crooks and victims.
This is an excellent way of putting it. Bitcoin was never intended as the digital fake store of value we see it being used for now, but as a currency. The clunky blockchain system with its weirdly variable transaction costs put an end to that. What good is it that the tulip traders have bid BTC up to a larger valuation than Mastercard when it can't handle a fraction of the transaction volume of the lowliest one-store credit card?
So if given these conditions you can't use BTC to buy pizza, who actually does want to use it as currency? Those who transact in drugs, child porn and ransoms, that's who.
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Well, it really depends on the note we are talking about.
A $1 note averages [federalreserve.gov] 7.7 cents, changes hands 110 times a year, and lasts [uscurrency.gov] 6.6 years.
Conservatively taking it as $0.10 cost, 100x, 6 years ~ $599.90 in economic liquidity. Those conservations should allow for transportation, disposal, currency exchanges, hoarding, net present value, and cost of pulling value out of currently circulating monies. Its clearly a big plus overall.
Its similar for $20s (~$11k) but at higher denominations the conservations don
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There is a legitimate place for a currency not in the death grip of nationstates or megacorp money processors that are increasingly cutting people off for more and more reasons.
You don't need some new currency for that, you can trade anything physics, hell you don't even need a currency not in the "death grip" of a nation state, you just need one not in the grip of *your* nation state. You can easily simply trade foreign currency as evident by the USD's importance in Venezuela or Iran.
There are countless options out there to trade with that don't involve burning entire nations worth of electricity to pointlessly move 1s and 0s around.
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There is a legitimate place for a currency not in the death grip of nationstates or megacorp money processors that are increasingly cutting people off for more and more reasons.
You don't need some new currency for that, you can trade anything physics
Not in Real Life. Because of details. Try to pay people with "anything physics." They don't want most of it. They're rather choosy.
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"anything physical" that was supposed to say. But the amazing thing about choosy people is that there's 7 billion of them on the planet. If you can't sell you thing then you're just not putting in any effort. Literally 100% of things we dig from the ground has dedicated market places for it so you don't even need to go looking for buyers.
Fuck man people will trade math as evident by bitcoin, so they can't be as choosy as you think they are.
Re: Inane commentary (Score:2)
Guess I'm going to go study cryptoanalysis.
So I can understand Bitcoin. Lol
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So, someone doesn't like corporations since they might be evil, and they don't like governments because they might be evil, so the solution is to put your faith into a currency whose primary users are criminals? Who buys and sells bitcoins all day long - money launderers, online black markets, tax evaders, and so forth. If you don't trust the banks, then why in the hell would you trust the mafia instead?
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It's a fad. Period. Bitcoin wastes so much energy that as soon as another one (eg Ethereum) comes along and consumes less energy, bitcoin is over. Repeat a few times until we get to a true digital currency that doesn't waste a continents worth of energy, meanwhile these old crypto currencies plummet as fewer and fewer machines remain on the "network"
Bitcoin wastes, as much energy as it does to power a 60w light bulb for an entire day for every single transaction on it. Ethereum is not nearly so bad right no
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Hmm sixty watts for a day versus fourteen watts for five days. Isn't that the same as seventy watts for a day making Etherium worse than Bitcoin per transaction? (Watts and numbers spelled out due to lameness filter)
Re: Inane commentary (Score:2)
5*24*14 > 24*60
Re: Inane commentary (Score:2)
Welcome to the stock market, son! :)
(Except, monetary wealth is relative. Every time those gamblers make up more money out of thin air, you salary just got cut in terms of purchase power. We call it "inflation". But really, it is theft, from us, by the gamblers.)
pyramid scheme ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The more I look at bitcoin (and I've held coins in the past) the more I can't decide what it actually is. I'm not talking "cryptocurrency", I mean on a more meta level.
And I think the closest I can sum up right now is "pyramid scheme". As long as new people jump on the bandwaggon, buying coins from the limited amount available, prices go up. What happens when interest levels out and becomes a constant? Will the value of the bitcoin also flatten, or will it crash?
I'm not an expert by far, so smarter people have probably thought about this before and found answers. I can just say that my subjective feeling tells me that the more aggressively the price shoots up, the less inclined I am to consider it a good investment.
Re:pyramid scheme ? (Score:5, Insightful)
it's a colossally inefficient way to store value and a massive waste of natural resources
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it's a colossally inefficient way to store value and a massive waste of natural resources
Mining bitcoins is less wasteful than mining gold.
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you may have missed that in the early 20th century, because other interesting things happened. but the vast majority of value today is not stored in gold.
Re:BTC Gold USD (Score:2)
Jimmy is a self-declared BTC "entrepeneur" - funny how most people clapping for the thing stand to make a profit from their clapping. Meanwhile, most people who think that gold is valuable don't actually own much of it, if at all. Even lots of Tesla and Apple fans don't own stocks in those companies.
There's a different kind of valuation going on there.
Re:BTC Gold USD (Score:2)
No, no, no. USD > Gold > BTC.
The US economy ~ $20T(=$20,000B). All the gold ever mined ~ $14T(=$14,000B). All the bitcoins in existence ~$0.400T(=$400B).
Re:BTC Gold USD (Score:2)
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Mining bitcoins is less wasteful than mining gold.
False. When you mine gold you get something that has intrinsic value for current human civilisation and industry. When you mine bitcoins you're literally just spitting out answers to math which has zero use in the world that couldn't be substituted by countless other things.
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It can be argued that the intrinsic value of gold for industrial uses is far below its current market price, which represents storehouse-of-value investing, but gold at least has millennia of acceptance across all cultures going for it. This is something that Bitcoin will never achieve.
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It can be argued even more than that: Since bitcoin is mined for the sole purpose of being traded and has no physical properties that give it purpose for anything other than trade you could literally substitute it with anything else we mine as 100% of materials we mine out of the ground are ultimately tradeable goods. That makes bitcoin the single most wasteful mining operation in the world as it could literally be substituted with anything we already do, i.e. it provides 0% value to humans.
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If all the world's gold could be fit into a few swimming pools, then what would happen if North Korea (or whoever) stumbled on a mountain than contained 100,000 times that volume that was easy to mine?
Should they be the richest nation on Earth due to geographic luck?
Would the value of gold drop to near nothing?
Is the value of gold based on its usefulness, its rarity, or something else?
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Gold was the best money for most of the history. Since the 20th Gold was successfully attacked and demonetized by our Governments.
Governments don't have the power to "attack' gold. Allit can do is declare it to be illegal for the law-abiding to own it. This has the same effect as declaring guns to be illegal, except that gold is easier to hide.
Gold stopped being usable as money all by itself during the 19th century as industrial technology increased the total value of goods for sale far beyond what the limited supply of gold could support. As this happened, fiats became the currency of everyday purchases and gold was bid up as a store
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it's a colossally inefficient way to store value and a massive waste of natural resources
Mining bitcoins is less wasteful than mining gold.
I'd like to see you quantify that statement, but no matter what at the end of mining gold you have a tangible object that has value outside the mining ecosystem.
Re: pyramid scheme ? (Score:2)
Re: pyramid scheme ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly a pyramid scheme, but the "Greater fool" theory. You buy it at an insane price, which is fool, but you expect that a greater fool will pay an even larger price yo you. You win, as long as you are not the greatest fool.
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Not exactly a pyramid scheme, but the "Greater fool" theory. You buy it at an insane price, which is fool, but you expect that a greater fool will pay an even larger price yo you. You win, as long as you are not the greatest fool.
Well this certainly isn't true.
If liquidity dries up (i.e. people stop buying) and the price crashes to $10,000 tomorrow, you lose if you bought at $15,000. You just didn't lose as much as those who bought at $27,000. So clearly the "greatest fool" isn't the only fool who will lose.
Re: pyramid scheme ? (Score:2)
This is about belief. It will crash.
Remember that its exchange rate with a potato is still zero potatoes pr bitcoin. As soon as people cannot make money with it by ripping off others, and have to go back to using it as actual money, ... and then notice they can't, ... it will die quicker than a snowman plunging into the sun.
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Scaramucci spoons up a dense serving of doublespeak - BTC is "crashing up" with "plenty of room to grow", but also "due for a correction". He's not saying much of substance, and leaving himself a rhetorical exit door in every corridor so that he can disavow anything he says, regardless of which direction the market goes.
But one thing stays pretty solid: the jaw keeps flapping. The word "Bitcoin" stays in the news, and that serves as hype in and of itself. No publicity is bad publicity. The raw fuel for the
At what point is this a real problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
The global economy can tolerate some pretty crazy things. To the average Joe, a virtual "company" with a market cap of $500 billion based on nothing more than the perceived values of some numbers is certainly insane. That's a lot of money to any individual, but not a huge problem for the global economy if it goes up or down 10%, or even if it collapses.
The question is, at what point is *so much money* diverted from the rest of the economy in to BTC or some other entity that it starts to create real problems? Like, the possibility of another Mt. Gox fiasco, except this time Goldman Sachs goes down because of it? Then what?
Would the governments be forced to bail out BTC holders that could prove their loss, by compensating them with fiat or another government-backed crypto?
I think we live in interesting times as it is. Congratulations longs, but I'm still not interested. It can go to $1 million/coin, and I still don't care. Why? Because the whole endeavor has been suspect both in motive and execution right from the very beginning. It reads like a fraternity prank that went further than the brothers could have every possibly imagined... but sooner or later the dean is going to be pissed.
Re:At what point is this a real problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Would the governments be forced to bail out BTC holders
No. In the 2008 financial crisis, the problem was that mortgage-backed securities were considered safe investments, and many of them even had an implicit government guarantee through FNMA. So money was invested in them assuming the principal was not at risk. When they crashed, it caused cascading failures throughout the financial system. So the "bailout" was to stop the cascade.
The government would not have intervened in the same way to stop a stock market collapse, since stocks are not considered safe investments and the principal is always at risk. Of course, the Fed intervenes to support the market by cutting interest rates, but that is different since it is targeted at the whole economy, not specific companies.
Likewise, no one who is sane would consider Bitcoin to be "safe". The principal is obviously at risk. So there is no systemic risk of a cascading failure, and no bailout will happen.
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So why is the government buying up stocks?
Separately from pushing interest rates down to almost zero, and purchasing company debts.
The government intervenes all the time to prop up the stockmarket, even when it's at record highs.
It's become so predictable that the stock market goes up on bad news like terrible jobs numbers. Because they know the government will throw more money at the stock market.
How can you not know this?
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Except every time that there was one?
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So you think the record trillions of bailout this year, several times what was doled out in 2008, gobs of which went to publicly-traded companies, had nothing to do with stock market collapse?
Re: At what point is this a real problem? (Score:2)
As soon as somebody tries to buy something with those $500 billion...
Newsflash: He can't. ... and somebody big *accepts* that as a payment.
Only works among other gamblers.
Now he can.
And our collective salary will just have dropped by $500 billion.
In a sane world, I would be able to sue for theft of my salary. But most people are literally too dumb to live, and not out of choice or intelligence at birth either, ... so inflation is what we get.
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As soon as somebody tries to buy something with those $500 billion...
Newsflash: He can't.
I mean this makes zero sense as a comment, did you even think it through? No item that anyone can buy costs $500 billion. Further, most people millionaires and all billionaires have their money locked up in various stocks. They have to sell stock before they can donate money, or sometimes they just donate the stock and the recipient sells it.
Either way, bitcoin can be converted into money almost as easily as stock. What's the difference?
The rest of your text also makes little sense.
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Half a trillion dollars is a shitload of money, even by global economy standards. Fortunately it's an imaginary number. But if Goldman Sachs is dumb enough to give a substantial portion of their money to some bitcoin scammers, then the price crashes, they could very well fail and require bailing out again.
The half trillion dollar figure comes from multiplying what you'd have to pay to buy one bitcoin by the total number that exist. Most of those bitcoins are actually not for sale, but are held by mysterious
Scaramucci says??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Scaramucci says??? (Score:2)
Even if I could afford it. Why would I? ;)
Same with tulip really (Score:4, Interesting)
basically a currency need stability otherwise it makes no sense to use it as currency (e.g. if you paid for 1 coffee in bitcoins a few month ago you lost an enormous amount of value/exchangeable money). As such right now bitcoin is solely a speculative commodity. It ain't even worth shit for manufacturing, exchanging, or do stuff beside quite a large illegal market.
So what does it says for its future prospects ? Well as a speculation tool it can reach lofty heights (see tulip) but at some point there is a cliff. Beside illegal exchange and speculation , there is no future for bitcoin, no IP, nothing to sell, the world at large does not need a extremely volatile currency. It will just crash and rebound and quite a lot of sucker will be parted from their money. In fact the only interest I see a few finance people have is "how could we still profit from that mess" or "we could have profited from the mess" and not "let us ride the wave to a long term investment".
If I had to speculate why we see such article on regular basis, is that if nobody "outside" is buying coin, the pool of money does not grow, and the illegal operations/large initial coin holder cannot cash in : you need external money feed to exchange, otherwise all you do is sleep on a nice pile of shit. Such article on the high and low of bitcoin serve that : they feed on some people FOMO, and serve to attract more pile of money in that speculation, and allowing some to cash out.
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basically a currency need stability otherwise it makes no sense to use it as currency
Bitcoin is volatile because it is thinly traded. As it is more widely adopted, it will become more stable.
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"Bitcoin is volatile because it is thinly traded. As it is more widely adopted, it will become more stable."
It is not "as" but "if".
And how it could be "if" when it's deflationary by default? Even if we take volatility out of the equation, bitcoin itself pushes you to hoard it instead of trade it.
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it ain't a question of open mind (Score:2)
Scenario A: bitcoin is unstable. Person A buy the 10 tons of ore for 10 BTC. Bitcoin rise by 100 dollar in one day. Person A now has lost value (1000 dollar) because they gave their BTC instead of hoarding.
Scenario B : bitcoin is unstable. Person A buy the 10 tons of ore for 1
"It is due for a correction" (Score:2)
Correction against what? P/E? Inner value?
Bitcoin has none of that. There's no reference that you can use to judge the market price and assess if it's under- or over-valued. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, it's all psychology.
Asynchronous (Score:2)
It's an asynchronous bet, if ever there was one. If it collapses you lose everything you put in. If it continues to amaze us (like it's done for 10 years) you may end up with 10 or 100 times your inlay.
You wanna miss out on that and continue moping on slashdot? Go ahead.
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Hah, I guess I meant, asymmetric, but it's asynchronous too, I guess!
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You're assuming continual exponential growth. That was a valid argument (I should have listened to) at $1. However, it's either a bubble or it's going to follow logistic growth like every other financial asset in history that wasn't a bubble. If you believe the growth rate is slowing, then it's asymmetric the other way.
Bitcoin is genius, but... (Score:3)
You have to give the inventor of Bitcoin credit: it is a technically brilliant system that has stood the test of time amazingly well. Too well, because it does have some serious flaws. In particular, it turns out not to be sufficiently scaleable: Both the electricity use for mining and the speed/volume of transactions are inadequate for the heights that Bitcoin has reached.
Bitcoin should have been a prototype, and should have been replaced by one or more other cryptocurrencies that address those flaws. And, indeed, other cryptocurrencies are also rising. The question is: Why doesn't Bitcoin fade into obscurity, letting other, better implementations rise to the top?
Two words (Score:4, Insightful)
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Put it this way: the only reason that the USD has value is because we all agree that it has value.
That's it.
There's absolutely no reason that everyone couldn't wake up tomorrow and suddenly stop
There's a huge ceiling over cryptocurrencies (Score:2)
And that is that the current situation is the ideal one from the perspective of every advanced nation-state and it's one of the few issues where Russia, China, the USA and Europe would agree firmly that no one is served by breaking the status quo.
Under the status quo, crypto currency is very popular with certain types of shady transactions. It is also very public and creates a permanent record transaction. But it's pseudononymous you say! That's objectively better for law enforcement than cash or gold. Cops
Still worthless. (Score:2)
Can' by a fuckin potato with it.
"Worth": $26k
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"Bitcoin's best days are ahead of it“? (Score:2)
Bigger & Bigger "Whales"? (Score:2)
Anyone who has an understanding of this pyramid scheme is aware that those able to pour enough capital into this scheme, can dictate at which point to sell out, thereby dropping the price, then buying back in again at the low - pump and dump.
The rinse and repeat cycle is then simply a case of volume. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the math of this would work.
In my simplistic view of it, if I'd managed to push the price up with my huge investment, then sold out, causing a panic and a price drop,
quotes around the wrong word. (Score:2)
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Do you even understand what "trickle down" means? Hint: it has zero to do with currency deflation.
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Heard a phrase, sounded good. I want to sound good - I regurgitate phrase. Just like they taught me in school. One time I regurgitated so hard I even got a promotion from the boss.
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Re:Bitcoin is good (Score:4)
There is nothing good about it. The high transaction fees, long confirmation times and the complete lack of protection for both sender and receiver makes it a terrible medium of exchange. I would much prefer to pay you by card because it's instant, the fees are low and I can chargeback if you fail to provide the goods or services.
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That's why he likes bitcoin: he's an online merchant. He'd prefer to be the sole arbiter of whether you were cheated or not, none of these nosy credit card companies investigating and reversing charges.
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...guaranteed to arrive at the destination,...
Until that morning when you wake up to find that your wallet or your exchange has been hacked, and it all suddenly just evaporated.
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Now, if you want to talk about how to protect a wallet from getting hacked, that's a completely different topic.
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You're an idiot if you keep your money on an exchange. How exactly does someone hack a bitcoin wallet?
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Baseball bat? Although waiting for someone to forget about their bitcoin, throw away their hard drive, then guessing and testing their password might be a viable alternative, if you're patient.
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How about those tv dinners folks? Aren't they awful!