Bitcoin Soars To $40,000, Doubling in Less Than a Month (fortune.com) 74
Bitcoin surged to $40,000 for the first time, doubling in value in less than a month and pushing the total market value of cryptocurrencies beyond $1 trillion. From a report: Cryptocurrencies hit the milestone after a fivefold climb in market value in the past year, data from tracker CoinGecko shows. Strategists have cited demand from speculative retail traders, trend-following quant funds, the rich and even institutional investors as among the reasons for the surge. Bitcoin rose as much as 11% on Thursday to $40,065 and has more than quadrupled in the past year, according to a composite of prices compiled by Bloomberg. It accounts for about two-thirds of cryptocurrency market value, followed by Ether at about 13%, according to CoinGecko data.
A fool and his money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A fool and his money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm expecting this to be a "pump and dump".
BTC > Gold > USD (Score:1)
https://twitter.com/charliebil... [twitter.com]
Re: BTC Gold USD (Score:2)
All revved up but nowhere to go.
Gold and a Rolex won't help you when everywhere else is worse. Only way for a sustainable long term economy would be metal coins as tender - from solid quality metal - where the metal value can be converted. https://www.riksbank.se/imagev... [riksbank.se]
Re:BTC Gold USD (Score:2)
Bitcoin https://twitter.com/charliebil [twitter.com]...
Funny how that guy posts a Zimbabwan One Trillion Dollars note and talks about creating money from thin air.
Because isn't that exactly what any crypto "currency" does? Oh, sorry, I meant from thin electricity, of course.
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Re: A fool and his money.... (Score:2)
And in 9 months you'd get a child support case to consider.
Already down (Score:2)
I'm just waiting to hear about all the knives out for CoinBase once it crashes from everyone attempting to cash out.
Coinbase is basically already down as far as being usable to buy or sell, can't log in on web, app cannot fetch payment/bank info.
Probably will be a large cash-out... just like there was around 35k, before it went up again.
Will be interested to see if more people are getting in or out right now.
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Or... What goes up, must come down.
Hey, that sounds like a song [youtu.be].
Deflationary spiral is the guaranteed reason (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot of things that COULD cause this bubble to burst.
There is one thing that WILL cause it, and that cause is the flip side of the "increasing value" - as the exchange rate between Bitcoin and USD goes higher and higher, that's the failure beginning.
Most likely, panic selling as soon as the price starts to fall for whatever reason, perhaps just because somebody with large holdings realizes Bitcoin is backed by nothing. Unlike say company stock - at a minimum, McDonald's stock represents at least $30 billion of real estate. So even if McDonald's went out of business tomorrow, the stock would still be worth more than $30 billion. Perhaps a regulatory change makes it dip - and as soon as it heads down, people start selling, which causes it to go down more, in a vicious cycle.
That's the *most probable* future, but not guaranteed.
A different mechanism of failure *is* essentially guaranteed by the design of Bitcoin.
As you may know, only 21 million Bitcoins can ever be mined. 18 million bitcoins have been mined of the 21 million possible. We're now at the knee in the curve where there are nearly zero more bitcoins being mined relative to the number in circulation. That is, the amount of Bitcoin in the world is growing at a rate of 0%. Keep that in mind - the supply of Bitcoin is growing at 0%, that is, it's not increasing by a meaningful amount.
Suppose Bitcoin is successful and becomes money, medium of exchange - stores list prices in Bitcoin, your salary is set in Bitcoin.
Suppose you build and sell something - say tiny houses. As you know the "value" of Bitcoin has doubled in the last 12 months, which simply means that if last year you could buy a tiny house for 4 Bitcoin, this year it costs only 2 Bitcoin. That is, sellers of tiny houses and all the other things now get half as many Bitcoin as they used to, for the same product or service.
A year ago, you'd have to work a month to earn a Bitcoin.
Today, you have to work two months to earn a Bitcoin.
If Bitcoin is *money*, your monthly budget is now *less money* now than it was a year ago. You earn half as much money per month, if Bitcoin is money.
When you earn half as much money, you spend half as much money. Which means the shop you go to gets half as much money. Which means they can afford to pay their workers half as much money.
Bam, everyone's income has been cut in half. But wait - there's more. The employee of the shop, whose pay was cut in half, was saving up to buy a tiny house. Now it takes them twice as long to save up to buy from you. Half as many sales cuts your income in half AGAIN. Which cuts your spending in half again, which cuts the shop's revenue in half again, which cuts the employees' paychecks in half again, round and round it goes. Everyone's paycheck getting smaller and smaller with each check, everyone able to afford less and less.
That's the reason that governments around the world and organizations like the federal reserve make damn sure that there is a little bit of INFLATION every year, they make sure that the money becomes LESS valuable over time. It's because in the opposite situation where the value of money is INCREASING, when you have DEFLATION, the economy crashes as everyone's buying power drops over and over again in a vicious cycle.
That's why a Bitcoin-based economy, an economy in which Bitcoin is the money, is guaranteed to fail. The Bitcoin economy fails because the money supply doesn't increase with usage, causing deflation, and deflation is a cyclic catastrophe.
Of course that doesn't necessarily happen until there is a Bitcoin economy - a group of people pricing things in Bitcoin. As long as Bitcoin is used like PayPal or MasterCard as a way to transfer US dollars, there is no deflationary crash. The crash happens when Bitcoin becomes the money, as opposed to a way to transferring US dollar money by converting it at both ends.
Inflation is a tax (Score:1)
The two sentences contradict each other. Inflation reduces the buying power of money, and deflation increases it. You don't need to do anything, but now that same dollar can get you a little more than it could last year. Borrowers win un
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No, the governments like inflation, because, wherever government prints money, inflation is a tax on wealth, about 2-3 cents on each dollar per year nowadays... Whether that's reasonable or not, call it, what it is: a tax.
The bigger factor is that inflation erodes the value/cost of national debt. Since everyone runs a deficit these days, all the central banks want to push inflation up.
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I don't know, which factor is bigger, but I acknowledged this aspect too, when I wrote, that borrowers win under inflation...
Re: Inflation is a tax (Score:2)
No inflation is a tax on cash not wealth. Learn the difference.
That is why you have interest rates.
What is the sign of a good economy? Rising interest rates. It means people have cash and credit available to them and are using it to grow.
What is the sign of a bad economy? Low and negative rates. Tax cuts , etc. That means you are trying to trick people into spending what cash they have.
Deflation means the value goes down as you hold. So long term holding becomes stupid. Short term trading can be pro
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There is no difference in the distinction you're making — no difference to the topic at hand.
Wealthy citizens.
Poor citizens.
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Where you think you see a contradiction that's because you assume that as sales fall, salary and wages remain the same. They do not.
You assume that while everyone spends less, everyone's income remains the same, but obviously that's impossible. The restaurant worker's income IS your dining expense. Knowing that you spend half as much on the car mechanic, the car mechanic's income necessarily must be halved - because one person's spending is the other person's income.
Therefore, when you fuck up the money s
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I don't know, where you're pulling this from...
That's too simplistic and also irrelevant. Your earlier sentences do still contradict each other — you cannot have the same factor (inflation, nyom-nyom) lower and also increase "buying power"... Your hand-waving is not helping...
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Deflation increases the buying power of $CURRENCY-UNIT.
Falling incomes decrease the buying power of your income.
That's a contradiction only if you assume that your income remains the same number of currency units, even as your company's revenue falls as expressed in those same currency units. Which is mathematically impossibe. That require your company to produce currency units magically from thin air.
When your company brings in half many Foodollars, your paycheck is going to be half as many Foodollars. Ac
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The Bitcoin economy fails because the money supply doesn't increase with usage
Even worse, it will probably decrease over time because someone forgets a password to a thumbdrive and those bitcoins are lost forever...
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Ideally you want very low inflation, but the fed guarantees that there is a little bit because deflation causes a catastrophic spiral. It's kinda line The Price is Right "closest without going over".
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Most likely, panic selling as soon as the price starts to fall for whatever reason, perhaps just because somebody with large holdings realizes Bitcoin is backed by nothing.
Large holders of BTC already realize that. They are just waiting for that final big wave of clueless newbies it takes to buy their coins from them.
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I'm guessing you maybe were in a hurry this morning and just glanced at the post you replied to. Perhaps without having time to actually read any of the sentences?
Yes it's when a $currency-unit increases in value that you get the spirak.
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Too much money chasing not enough goods, this should blow up huge, I wouldn't doubt this hybrid Greater Fool Bubble/Ponzi creation goes over 6 digits.
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Do you buy British Pounds or Jordan Dinars to get rich?
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Cue the sour grapes (Score:1)
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I didn't buy at 10. It was 2013 I think.
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Backed by nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $40K should be prepared for it to end badly.
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Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $4 should be prepared for it to end badly.
Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $40 should be prepared for it to end badly.
Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $400 should be prepared for it to end badly.
Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $4000 should be prepared for it to end badly.
Anyone who buys Bitcoin at $40000 should be prepared for it to end badly.
See you guys at $400k!
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Absolutely. At any price, really.
But if you're so convinced it will crash I would buy some put options.
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https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Wow, that was fast.
Bitcoin: for the other 1% (Score:2)
Bitcoin: for the other 1% - that 1% being all the geeks this time.
Somebody's probably hiding money in it (Score:3)
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That's so last decade. Nobody uses bitcoin to pay for drugs now. It's all Monero, being the biggest 'privacycoin' and all.
In all seriousness, it's pretty strange as Monero tanked earlier in the week as exchanges started delisting it due to money laundering fears. So the value of BTC and ETH now has almost nothing to do with the underground economy and everything to do with attracting that sweet sweet QE cash printed by the central banks that had flooded the market since covid started. It's just another asse
If you had invested $1000 in BC in Aug 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you had invested $1000 in BC in Aug 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
Incorrect.
You'd have assets that you could potentially sell for a net profit of $66B dollars.
That is not the same as having $66B dollars.
=Smidge=
Re:If you had invested $1000 in BC in Aug 2010 (Score:4, Insightful)
Incorrect.
You'd have assets that you could potentially sell for a net profit of $66B dollars.
That is not the same as having $66B dollars.
=Smidge=
Assuming you didn't lose the file, forget your password, or had them stolen by your exchange [wikipedia.org].
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If you keep large amounts on exchanges you're a moron. Might as well store all your cash at a random strangers house.
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Yes, it's like saying Elon Musk is the richest person in the world.
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So you sell off little by little and cash out the max that Coinbase allows which is like $50k a week. Damn fine income if you ask me.
Re: If you had invested $1000 in BC in Aug 2010 (Score:2)
I bought $100 worth of BTC in 2014, after the first big spike deflated (I think that got me 0.25 BTC). Kept all that in crypto, diversified some into ETH, MON, LTC, XRP and others along the way. The ETH and BTC holdings are now worth $5200. Hardly enough to retire on but a pretty decent ROI for six years.
And yeah, I know it would have a been better ROI to just hodl the BTC...
Warren Buffet still wouldn't buy it (Score:2)
Recently: Bitcoin Surges 25% In One Week. Warren Buffett Still Won't Buy It [slashdot.org]
I read "Doubling In Lies" (Score:3)
Fits perfectly.
I invested in popcorn instead (Score:5, Funny)
because this will be really entertaining to watch when it crashes, and I'll be able to sell some popcorn to others as they watch too.
Oh boy (Score:3)
Let's all go buy at the peak.
Really, if you buy BTC you can wait a year and a new random number will pop up. It's just as likely to be higher than lower. The price history of BTC is a random walk that we're trying to ascribe some meaning behind. You should only play with BTC for fun now and not take it seriously, like a slot machine without the free drinks.
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Well we don't know what the peak is. I thought 33k was the peak last week... didn't buy... then it hit 35k...then 37k last night... still didn't buy...
You've got to take some risk to make money.
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I prefer to invest based on information and quantifiable risk.
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The faster it climbs (Score:5, Insightful)
... the more stable it is.
Woosh ...
Makes you wonder.. (Score:1)
..why is the dollar crashing like this? What isn't everyone talking about this?! Dollars aren't buying nearly as much of commodities (e.g. bitcoins) as they used to. Are we experiencing hyperinflation?
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Economic output is down (despite a very good third quarter [wsj.com]), while the money-supply is increasing [cnbc.com]. That's why...
Sesame Street Time (Score:2)
Do you know how to spell BUBBLE?
That's right! B U B B L E -- Bubble!
And what do bubbles do? They BURST. Do you know how to spell BURST?
That's right! B U R S T -- Burst!
And so on ad nauseum.
act now!!! (Score:3)
what's that symbol on the back of US currency? (Score:2)
Oh yeah, a Pyramid. Or, someone is doing a pump and dump, which I know is different than a Pyramid scheme. I wonder how many of these transactions are circular. If you trace the trades, I would not be at all surprised to see "coins" making complete circuits among traders.
Let's try this scenario. You get a fair amount of coin, have a few traders, or just a bunch of wallets. Trade amongst yourselves at increasing value, while selling the occasional coin to outsiders. Get it nice and big, sell a bunch mor
Do they (Score:1)
Yay, another Bitcoin story on Slashdot! (Score:2)
This is what... the fourth Bitcoin story on Slashdot in the last week?
I guess that I can't blame msmash... pumping Bitcoin is basically his retirement fund! It's not like being a Slashdot editor pays well.
Here's the First Bitcoin story ever on Slashdot (Score:2)
Compare and contrast today's conversation with 2013:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
What about the trillions printed by the Fed? (Score:1)
"No real value" (Score:1)
Why do people keep saying that BTC represents no real value? I know of very few currencies that do - apart from the actual physical coins. BTC is not stock, nor does it pretend to be. That people are using it as investment is *their* prerogative; BTC wants to be a *currency*.
Do you honestly still think that a 100 dollar bill is *worth* $100? It's all based on "what the fool is willing to trade for it". The USA can get away with simply printing bills, giving them to China in exchange for shiny goods, an