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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Cryptocurrency Markets Drop $200B, Bitcoin Down 50% Since November (cnbc.com) 250

40 days ago Bitcoin sold for $47,454. It's price now is $34,007 — a drop of 28%.

About a third of that drop happened this week, as "Bitcoin, ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies have fallen sharply," Forbes reports, "wiping around $200 billion from the crypto market in just a matter of days (though some fear the bitcoin price could fall far further)." Bitcoin is now at its lowest prince since last July, "in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve's biggest interest rate hike in years". Ethereum and other top ten luna, solana, cardano and avalanche are also struggling with market sentiment falling to lows not seen since January.... Smaller cryptocurrencies that have outpaced the likes of bitcoin and ethereum in recent months have fallen harder during this latest crash. "The future of individual coins or tokens remains dubious, the law remains in control of such solicitations and the approval of social media giants such as Elon Musk," added Tammy Da Costa, an analyst at DailyFX.
CNBC notes the drop occurred "after a broader stock sell-off in the U.S. last week," but points out that bitcoin "is now down 50% from its peak price of $67,802.30 in November 2021."
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Cryptocurrency Markets Drop $200B, Bitcoin Down 50% Since November

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  • Unpossible! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @09:44PM (#62515466)

    I was explained that crypto always goes up!

    PS: Apparently Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy (MSTR) is facing margin loans on a shitton of debt against their Bitcoin if it hits ~$25k. Fun times.

    • Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @09:49PM (#62515474)

      I was explained that crypto always goes up!

      PS: Apparently Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy (MSTR) is facing margin loans on a shitton of debt against their Bitcoin if it hits ~$25k. Fun times.

      Actually $21k. https://markets.businessinside... [businessinsider.com] Fingers crossed it goes down!

    • Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iMadeGhostzilla ( 1851560 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @10:16PM (#62515530)

      > 40 days ago Bitcoin sold for $47,454. It's price now is $34,007

      The amazing part to me is that 1 bitcoin is worth $34K instead of $0. It's just a bunch of people wishing something to be true without anything to back it up with, unlike say the US government that backs up its own virtual currency, the USD, with assets and force.

      Maybe I'm wrong saying they have nothing to back it up with but I don't see what they could do.

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        by saider ( 177166 )

        The US dollar is backed up by the US government's promise to repay the debt - using existing assets and force.

        • *less inflation while the printer goes "BRT'

          • As long as the US can keep the USD as the global international trade currency, printing money is essentially collecting global tax. De-value everyone's USD they hold, and at the same time reduce your foreign debt.

            That works great until someone has the idea to trade internationally in a different currency. Then again, the US is very sensitive to someone announcing that, And sends very strong messages [theguardian.com] to those that dare to.

        • So... just like with bitcoins? it's backed by the collective suspension of disbelief?

          • So... just like with bitcoins? it's backed by the collective suspension of disbelief?

            Pretending the US military is not a thing or that we will hesitate to use it is not a good look. It represents suspension of thought.

      • Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @03:09AM (#62515884)

        Bitcoin is a lot like the strapless dress on an 80 year old. It's mostly kept up by the collective will of everyone in the room, because everyone is terrified of the prospect of it dropping.

      • Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by N1AK ( 864906 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @05:39AM (#62516032) Homepage
        A US dollar lost 80% of its value between 1975 and 2021, it's in the process of losing around 10% of its value in a single year. 20% of the USD in existence was created in a single quarter in 2020 https://moguldom.com/310861/st... [moguldom.com] and the majority of USD in existence were created in the last couple of years.

        I have no intention of defending Bitcoin, though I do hold some, but holding dollars has been a reliable way to lose money for over 50 years because although the US government backs it they can also print as much as they want for themselves, diluting the value.
      • > Maybe I'm wrong saying they have nothing to back it up with but I don't see what they could do.

        Trust. Every had your bank account frozen because you transferred money out of it to an account you also own? I have, twice, this year.

      • by thomn8r ( 635504 )

        It's just a bunch of people wishing something to be true without anything to back it up with,

        Hey, it's worked well for the past 3000+ years for various religions

    • Obligatory: https://youtu.be/XbZ8zDpX2Mg [youtu.be]

      Moral of the story: Don't buy Bitcoin 'cause you know it's going to crash again.
    • I thought people would rush into Bitcoin if the stock market crashed? Wrong!
    • Nope, it goes every which way very quickly & without warning. That's what makes it so exciting & why so many people love gambling with it. This is a feature, not a bug.
    • It's hard to keep up with all the shaky foundations cryptocurrencies is built on and all the ways it's going to collapse soon.

      Come on let's go collapse! Papa needs a new GPU!
  • by ChesterRafoon ( 4205907 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @09:49PM (#62515470)
    /s
  • Market crash (Score:3, Informative)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @09:50PM (#62515476)
    Overall, the markets are down heavily in the last 6 months. Nasdaq down 25%, Dow 14%, individual stocks vary quite a bit more but are also down. Cryptocurrency is down along with all speculation across all markets. It’s looking like a recession, across much of the world, is underway.
    • by trparky ( 846769 )

      Recession? Try depression. Hell, we've been in a depression for the last ten years except they've not told us that or we'd have riots in the streets.

      • If you didn't have to buy a first home in the last 5 years or so it wasn't so bad. If the last 10 years were a depression what is coming is suicidal, outside the US at least.

        US has the cleanest dirty shirt, hovering up all the capital in the world regardless of government deficits, most other nations will get fucked and forced into either crippling budget cuts or crippling currency depreciation. The Fed is playing a dangerous game.

      • How dare you say the D word? Saying the R word is already forbidden!

    • Re:Market crash (Score:5, Insightful)

      by battingly ( 5065477 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @10:12PM (#62515522)
      The "markets"? The value of currency doesn't correlate with equity markets. The value of crypto doesn't doesn't go up or down because some companies reported good or bad earnings. At the moment it's completely driven by irrational speculation and the psychological pressures that influence that speculation.
      • The "markets"? The value of currency doesn't correlate with equity markets. The value of crypto doesn't doesn't go up or down because some companies reported good or bad earnings. At the moment it's completely driven by irrational speculation and the psychological pressures that influence that speculation.

        False. The markets had excess liquidity, it was being dumped into everything. Mainstream stocks and markets often don’t make sense either, just explain Tesla or GameStop, much less that New Jersey deli that pulls in 37k gross earnings and is valued at $100m. Crypto markets are only a very small fraction of the overall insanity though, and when the money dried up, people pulled their money out of crypto just like everything else. If anything, I’d say tons was spent in real estate because it w

    • Fed started talking rate hike in January, market started dropping in January.

      They think rising inflation expectations are a bigger problem than the biggest fossil fuel plus food supply shock in half a century coming on top of the aftermath of a global epidemic. I think they are fucking idiots.

      • Re:Market crash (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mmell ( 832646 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @01:00AM (#62515756)

        Nope. If you're referring to the Fed, all they do is money. They don't do medicine. They don't do energy. They do money. I'm sure they know more about it than you or I do.

        If you're talking about people losing their shirts in crypto/ponzi schemes, they're chumps. Chumps get what they deserve.

        If you're talking about guys like me - a somewhat wrinkled example of Engineerium/Administratus Systemmus, (UN)IX - you need to understand where I'm at in the grand scheme of things. I've survived the pandemic (got vaccinated/boosted at the first opportunity; when I got COVID last month, I got over it pretty quickly). For work, I've got a long-term WFH contract, a pretty solid position. For getting around, I've got a Ford hybrid that'll do ~30 km. on a charge, and it gets ~45mpg on burning gasoline if I decide to hit the road. Got a freezer full of meat, shelves full of dry staples (I'm old school, my wife and I both know how to cook food from ingredients). I'm not rich, but I think my savings will hold out, I make my odds 50-50 they'll last through the coming depression. I'm still looking to buy on the dip - even a depression will end in my lifetime, all I gotta do is hang on and with a little luck and maybe a little skill, I can come out of this in more or less decent shape. I expect to be dead by old age before society collapses or global warming reshapes the geopolitical globe or we run out of oil/potable water/breathable air.

        I do feel bad when I think about my kids and grandkids facing these things which I bequeath them; but I'm tired of fighting against it, I'm grabbin' a slice o' the pie for myself before I go. In case I don't get a chance to say it later, so long and thanks for all the fish!

        • The fact that all they do is money is the problem.

          I'm talking about everyone outside the US who needs a job, I'm talking about all the investments which need to be made due to energy and food supply disruptions, I'm talking about world stability. Exporting a depression (because the US is sucking up capital world wide) is fucking dangerous in a way people who think just about America's currency can't capture in their models.

    • Whether or not you're in recession has nothing to do with what the stock market is doing. You're in recession if you have two successive quarters of negative growth of the GDP of the economy, not because the stock market has been going down for however long.
    • Ok so why isn't slashdot constantly posting about our 401ks being down 25%? Is it because we magically only care when shit we don't hold is dicey?
  • I personally believe BitCoin is a good thing to have, and that some day it will be really useful.

    But I don't own any at the moment. That is because there is just too much leverage in the system, and a lot of manipulation of price.

    The people that say BitCoin has no intrinsic value are right from a strict monetary since, so I'm really waiting to see leverage get shaken out of the system and see if a more stable, real price can be found - even though BitCoin has no intrinsic value, I think the utility as a tr

  • by NoMoreDupes ( 8410441 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @10:09PM (#62515514)
    Still waiting on an answer to my question: [slashdot.org]

    Umm... the US dollar is hyper-inflating right now,

    Umm... if the dollar is so 'hyper-inflated', shouldn't the price of Bitcoin have shot up instead of trending down??

    • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @11:42PM (#62515688)

      Hyper-inflation... guess that's why - at my local Winco - a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread is $4.49 today, while a week ago it was way down at... $4.49.

    • Crypto values have been inflated by printing of USD that has been spent on crypto. There will be continued bleeding from crypto markets as the QE money is slowly squeezed out of the system.

      • I'm not sure I'd call it slow. I think they are starting with around 45B/month, but ramping to 95B/month starting September. More of a gash than a cut.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by blahabl ( 7651114 )

      Still waiting on an answer to my question: [slashdot.org]

      Umm... the US dollar is hyper-inflating right now,

      Umm... if the dollar is so 'hyper-inflated', shouldn't the price of Bitcoin have shot up instead of trending down??

      Because inflation does not have to be reflected in the price of a given currency. Prepare to have your mind blown: click [wikipedia.org] and note how different countries in the eurozone have different inflation rates. Same exact currency (euro), so by definition Slovakia's currency has 1:1 exchange rate with France's currency, and yet, different inflation rates.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        So what you're saying is that drugs and ransoms have gotten a lot cheaper while everything else has gotten more expensive?

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      You'd think, except Bitcoin "hyperinflated" by six times as much.

  • It's truly shocking that the most speculative of investments which keeps ramping up its energy requirements and which has no coverage in goods or services is so volatile! Who could have predicted that?!

    • More speculative than Tesla my dude? Also bitcoin maybe ramping up in terms of energy but crypto as a whole is most certainly ramping down.
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @10:54PM (#62515598)
    They are doing it slowly because they let the market Fester for too long and it's approached 2 trillion, so they want to deflate rather than pop the bubble because nobody wants to risk damaging the broader economy. But it's only a matter of time now before those regulations take effect.

    Meanwhile the nft market has collapsed. It turns out the reason nfts took off was because in 2020 governments passed laws to reign in common tax dodges done with art. Those laws took effect in 2021 and the wealthy or hoping to use nfts to replace the tax Dodges they lost. I gather the governments are just applying the same laws to nfts as they are to art in general making nfts useless for tax dodging unless you're going to use them for money laundering. And there are much better ways to wander money that don't leave a perfect paper trail behind.

    On top of that there have been so many cryptocurrency thefts that there's a website dedicated to them, web3isgoinggreat.com. but the real problem is not the thefts but the fact that the exchange is have started to seize cryptocurrency they can trace back to thefts. I understand the desire to recover stolen property but it means that if you happen upon currency that the exchanges declare stolen and you use one of the exchanges then they just take your currency and you're just out the money. This is exposed to Major flaw in the entire scheme that's sending shock waves across the entire market. The kind of shock waves that should have happened when tether and ethereum forked their chains and left thousands with worthless assets.

    I don't think there's going to be a bubble burst because I think the governments are being careful to prevent that and because there's a whole bunch of people like Peter thiel who are super wealthy and well invested in crypto and not the kind of people who are allowed to get caught holding the bag. But at this point it's painfully obvious we're at the stage where the people in the know are getting out and leaving the suckers behind with massive losses.

    It sucks because a whole bunch of people who can't afford it or about to have their savings wiped out. It was bound to happen sooner or later, at least the broader economy should be relatively strong so that they have a chance of recovering. I wish them luck
    • by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @11:22PM (#62515642)

      I never "got" the point of NFTs anyway. All one is buying is a signed link to a URL via their wallet. With Ethereum gas all over the place, buying and selling NFTs can be dicey, just because if there is a spike, that $20 NFT that one wanted to buy now costs $3520, until the trading ceases... and there are times when one wants to buy/sell now. Imagine if stock brokers had surge pricing where if the market has high trading, commissions go up over 100%.

      The parent is right about crypto thefts. If a business needs $100,000, they will have an armored car drop off the cash, the cash would be stored in a TL-30 or a TL-60x6 safe, with a camera and alarm system that is able to deal with duress events. It is also insured, so if the cash does vanish, it is a mount of paperwork, but it is recoverable. Now, lets look at $100,000 in Bitcoins, which is about 3 BTC at this time. Most people use their phone, an app on their computer, or at absolute most, a hardware dongle. None of these are rated by insurance, none of these have any real solid security, especially with attackers that have a lot of resources, and endpoint security is abysmal, barring a hardware wallet (and even then, finding a trustworthy hardware wallet is dicey... as none of them have any audited, only a few have open source support, many don't even have updated apps, and even then, you have zero assurance that a firmware upgrade doesn't take your private wallet info and send it back.) Insurance is hard and expensive to get for crypto.

      For an average user, there are so many concepts for cryptocurrency that have to be done 100% right, or else massive losses happen. For example, using someone's Monero key when they meant to sent Bitcoin can lose the currency forever. Or, if someone used a paper wallet (which were a big thing a few years back), and it got waterlogged. Or, someone using a service to have their BTC private key engraved on a brass plate, only to discover that all their currency vanished after they divulged their private key.

      Exchanging cryptocurrency can be difficult. KYC/AML rules, threats of export sanctions, or the fact that for some currencies, finding someone in the area to exchange the currency for something else, or perhaps a currency that actual stuff can be bought with, can be dicey, and if it is illegal, that person offering the exchange can easily be a LEO doing a sting operation.

      Crypto has a lot of people trying to prop it up, but it is starting to get some grievous wounds. Governments are closing in on it, there are no real players coming in at the bottom of the pyramid, so growth is limited, and the ability to use it for trade is being curtailed in many places.

      Will BTC go to $0? Probably not. However, BTC is a "1.0" currency, and it might just drop into insignificance, while some other currency that is more easily mined, takes up less energy, has less "gas" charges, even when the network is saturated, has build in anonymity, so transactions made 20 years ago wouldn't haunt someone (not all countries have statute of limitations), and has the ability to have its block chain pruned, so one doesn't have to parse every single transaction to ensure they are not double-spend. However, one never knows... BTC could double in value in two months if a major national currency collapses.

      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @10:47AM (#62516610)
        the world governments passed laws that closed some major tax loop holes. If you search for "art tax dodge" on google you can find articles explaining how the scheme works. In 2020 laws were passed to ban those tax dodges and in 2021 those laws went into effect. NFTs were supposed to replace art in the scam, but I gather the regulators just said "they're the same thing, the existing laws apply" causing the bubble created by rich tax evaders to burst.
    • You're talking about that one time that Binance seized money that came directly from the hack through tornado cash and into their wallet and from that you are widely speculating that they will seize any funds from any wallet where stolen funds may have passed through.

      Stop doing that. Unless they announce that as their policy we can assume that it's not because that would shoot them in the foot.
      • that's literally what you're saying. Look, I'm sorry you don't like reality. But I'm not going to stop saying true things because they make people uncomfortable.

        If they can do it once they can, and will, do it again. And they'll do it every time. The point is they have the power to do it. They weren't supposed to have that power. That was the entire point of this system. And it broke down for the same reasons (market consolidation) that it always does. Markets always consolidate. It's inevitable. Tech d
    • There isn't enough market exposure for blockchain tokens/NFTs to threaten the broader economy.

    • I'm fairly sure that people who are invested in BTC and well conneted also know well in advance when to jump ship before it sinks, so don't worry about them, they won't be the ones who get to foot the bill.

      That's our job, after all.

    • Meanwhile the nft market has collapsed.

      Opensea just posted it's best week ever, kiddo. 600m or so in daily trade volume. You're somehow mistaking the recent spike in demand over otherdeed mints for a bad thing. It's a little complicated but you'll get there if you put in the effort.

  • by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Sunday May 08, 2022 @11:17PM (#62515628)
    Bitcoin and altcoins are a solution looking for a problem. They have no intrinsic value and do not produce any value. Yes, there will be plenty of people who will claim otherwise, and that is because those people have already bought into the whole thing in the first place and the only way they can hope to recover their investment is by selling it to someone else. It is all a giant ponzi scheme, which needs to keep selling in order to keep existing investors on it and draw new investors so that existing ones can sell what they bought.

    Buffet said it best, if he bought all the bitcoins in the entire world, what would he actually have? For what reason would someone else want to purchase one? What intrinsic force would provide a method for it to have some value to someone who doesn't own one (other than to say, "hey I have one of those")? What do you actually "own" anyway? What would even keep it's algorithm working if that ever happened since no one would use CPU/GPU cycles on maintaining the ledger because all the coins have been mined and are now all "owned" by a single entity?

    Even fiat money at least has some level of value because governments accept it for payment of taxes and trades. If all the US Dollars in the world were somehow owned by a single person, they could still be used to pay others because the US government backs them and laws in states allow them to be used as payment. No such thing exists for bitcoin or the other altcoins. The only "value" they have is the motivation of the people who own them selling them to the next sucker who is willing to buy it for more than they may have paid for it originally.
    • by mmell ( 832646 )

      Yeah, now that the "new technology smell" has worn off and investors are realizing that their new economic vehicle can do everything but start, run, steer and stop.

      Good thing it's only a virtual vehicle. If it'd been real, someone could've gotten hurt.

    • by noodler ( 724788 )

      >quote>They have no intrinsic value...

      That's incorrect. Crypto coin systems can be used for other things besides transferring value. They are (very particular) communication networks and can, on a base level, be used as that. That's an intrinsic value that you won't get from paper dollars.

      ... and do not produce any value.

      Money, by itself, doesn't produce value. It represents value. It's the economy that produces the value. That and the printing or destroying of the tokens (which is being done with fiat money).

      Even fiat money at least has some level of value because governments accept it for payment of taxes and trades.

      That's not intrinsic va

      • 100% agree with what you said. Currency typically has little intrinsic value (paper bills as bad toilet paper, coins for metallic content).

        Doesn't negate the OP's point though. Fiat money is useful because it's commonly accepted as a currency, and in fact its usage as a currency is mandated and enforced by the government, through the use of force if necessary. Bitcoin and its peers are not used as a currency today, they're simply commodities, and unlike other commodities (e.g., gold, or bacon) it has no
    • > Bitcoin and altcoins are a solution looking for a problem

      Oh they had a problem. The problem was how to cut out visa and PayPal when accepting payments and due to speculators it’ll never get used that way.

  • It's a hedge against inflation, wait no! It's better than gold!

    • Well... no. Gold at least does have a few applications. Also, it has been considered valuable by people throughout the ages, since times immemorial, because it seems that for some odd reason humans like shiny stuff.

  • You mean all the things with zero intrinsic value and doesn't exist and has no backing has dropped in "value"? Oh, noes, what ever will I do?

  • This is just the next very last chance to buy under $40k,, really this time it is, we pinkie swear.
  • Core inflation has only been about 33.5% since 2008, which is when much of the current QE nonsense started. The earliest recorded prices for BTC of $.01 go back to late 2009/early 2010. Since then it's been up by ~336159700%. Do you think it's just inflation of USD that's been driving its price?

    It's QE money, duh.

  • From day one, cryptocurrencies were good for speculation, and precious little more. That's typical behavior for speculation targets. Cryptocurrencies have the additional property of requiring massive amounts of energy to keep going. What's not to like about them?

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