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Bitcoin News

Bitcoin Reaches and Surpasses $100k USD (nbcnews.com) 293

Bitcoin just broke $100,000 USD for the first time and reached as high as $104k, and is now sitting at $102,857 at the time of this writing.

Slashdot was pretty early on Bitcoin.

Thoughts, nocoiners?

Bitcoin Reaches and Surpasses $100k USD

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  • by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:37PM (#64991971)

    Bitcoin reaches and surpasses $100k USD

    So buying targets reach and surpasses $25k USD. Bitcoin is notorious for 75% corrections after the really big and fast run ups.

  • by Gleenie ( 412916 ) <simon.c.greenNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:40PM (#64991985)

    I won't invest in BitCoin even if it makes me money any more than I would invest in a weapons company. Yeah, they make tons of cash too. But ethics is a thing.

    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:42PM (#64991987)

      Nothing any more unethical about bitcoin than any national currency and you probably use that.

      • I make it a point not to hoard dollar bills under my mattress and call it "investing." And purchasing anything other than a share of a productive asset or organization is functionally equivalent to hoarding dollar bills. I know I won't win the lottery this way, but I also know I'm reasonably insulated from most kinds of crashes except the civilization-ending kind. In which case even shiny rocks are useless since they won't fill my belly.

      • by Reeses ( 5069 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @05:17AM (#64992585)

        Except for where the money's coming from.

        It's pretty well known that most crypto (including BitCoin) is larger driven by the greater fool theory. So the last one left holding the bag loses. It's also pretty well known that a lot of the money that's propping BitCoin up is coming from illicit activities like money laundering. So if you're OK with getting money that's probably from drug dealing or human trafficking, then yeah it's not unethical.

        • I believe the theory has been upended at this point and that large financial institutions and soon larger governments (other than the small players that are already in) are driving the market. IBIT holds over 5% of available Bitcoin.

          Bitcoin is THE fiat currency alternative, and EVERYONE seems to agree. The meme is now "not owning some".

          It is about trust, and an agreed upon mechanism.

          Bitcoin is that mechanism and the price is a reflection of trust.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            I believe the theory has been upended at this point and that large financial institutions and soon larger governments (other than the small players that are already in) are driving the market. IBIT holds over 5% of available Bitcoin.

            Bitcoin is THE fiat currency alternative, and EVERYONE seems to agree. The meme is now "not owning some".

            No, I don't think so. It's driven by greater fool theory because you don't jump 25% in a month.

            The thing is, it's best to consider Bitcoin a thinly-traded item. Because there

      • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @07:28AM (#64992763)

        Completely wrong. The only real-world use crapcoins have is money-laundering for organized crime, mostly Ransomware attacks. You
        "invest", you become complicit.

    • before long deregulation will bring the major banks in, and it'll infest all of Wall Street, just like mortgage backed securities did in 2008.

      And if you think that crash was bad wait until a bubble backed by funny-money instead of houses bursts.
      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Yup, we literally have you spouting stuff like this on that 2010 discussion thread.

        Bitcoin was $0.06 then, if someone had disregarded your advice and tossed the $1.26 spare change in their pocket at bitcoin for fun instead of buying a 20oz soda from the vending machine that night; they would have more than $2.1 million dollars and consumed 150 calories less.

        I wonder how many people are still struggling today because they've taken your advice over the years... how many people believe in the wisdom of rsilver

        • rsilvergun's posts are best understood as a polemic: he tries to push his point of view as convincingly as possible, whether right or wrong.

          That sounds like an insult, but it's not. Because he does collect information in support of his viewpoint, and he does change when he goes too far, so his posts still have value. Furthermore, this is a public forum, where people can oppose them with their own data and viewpoints (as you have done). That distinguishes his posts from something like Fox News, where peop
      • Hah too late, the ETFs are already here. It's part of what's pumping the BTC price. And if that's how the banks and investment houses expose themselves to crypto, then it won't be another 2008.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      What on earth is unethical about bitcoin?
      • What on earth is unethical about bitcoin?

        Some people equate it to a ponzi scheme.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @11:43PM (#64992115)

      bitcoin is ethical because it is honest, uncheatable, money.

      money, in most all forms, is a distributed accounting system. if I "mint" a money of 100 red beads and distribute them, then people can trade with red beads. No matter how much trade occurs, there are a total of 100 beads. People perform labor (give part of their life) to obtain these beads. But if some participant can create new red beads out of thin air at little cost, then that participant is able to obtain the labor of others essentially for free. This is a theft, but one that is nearly invisible. The accounting system has become dishonest because participants believe they are holding a token worth 1/100th of total economy, but now it is really worth 1/125th. If the cheating participant is clever they will continue creating red beads at a slow-ish rate and convince the other people this is "healthy inflation needed for growth". In this way, they can parasitize the life-energy of others perpetually.

      Bitcoin is honest money because every participant is continuously verifying every single transaction to ensure that no cheating occurs. At core, it is simply a verified distributed accounting system, as opposed to the unverifiable distributed accounting system that is fiat money.

      Perhaps if more slashdotters understood this difference, and understood that bitcoin is the first verifiably honest money in human history, they might not be so salty about it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        You're under the impression Bitcoin is a currency.
        It isn't money, it's no more money than a Bored Ape NFT is.
        It's buying and selling things of no tangible value. Like investors in the stock market.

      • by znrt ( 2424692 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @12:06AM (#64992151)

        bitcoin is ethical because it is honest, uncheatable, money.

        it's not really money, it's a speculative store of value. the volume of transactions that actually correspond to exchange of goods and services is minimal and will never increase, both by design (because it's really impractical) and by speculation (it's stupid to part from your btcs as long as they keep increasing in value). since it has no other real use there are only 2 possible scenarios for it: either it increases in value indefinitely, or it crashes at some point. make your bets.

        i'm not even trying to address if it is "ethical" or not. it's just a tool. we could use it for good, but mostly we don't. imo the whole thing is a massive scam, but so is every financial institution.

        • You don't understand what money is. For most of the history of money, it was used basically only as a clearing system, for example between tribes. Day to day transactions were done in trade, IOUs, or through some communal system. Money was only used to exchange with people you don't trust.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        On the other hand, Bitcoin's primary use is crime. From people collecting ransoms to scam exchanges that are basically unregulated banks. The core concept may be honest, but in practice it's mostly a tool to rob people.

      • Perhaps if more slashdotters understood this difference

        We understand that the difference is that Bitcoin remains PoW and has ecological impact.

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      You must have some pretty messed up ethics. Why because you've picked a 'good guy' team and the 'bad guy' team gets to do things the good guy team has banned by slipping their controls using crypto?

      Bitcoin is money controlled by neutral algorithms with no stake in the game, everyone is treated equally. Whereas the people who control the IMF and Global banks essentially create money at will and enjoy all goods and services purchased with money... they own all labor and work in exchange for nothing. That's ca

    • by tero ( 39203 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @01:14AM (#64992253)

      Bitcoin is cool if you're into crime, drugs, trafficking and ransomware. Personally that's not really what I'm passionate about supporting, but each to their own.

      • USD is the currency preferred by criminals and fraudsters. As a percentage of market value, crime makes up similar quantities of USD and Bitcoin.

        • Fortunately, there are lots of *other things* you can buy with USD.

        • I guess your counting gift cards. Never been burned by a cc transaction. Couple attempts, but the cc company reversed it and probably stuck it on the seller, who may well have been in on it with the perp. The large foreign gangs use crypto. I've never seen a story of a hospital/school/... being hacked and the perp wants a briefcase full of cash flown to NK. Nope, they want crypto. They also don't want apple iTunes cards.
      • crime, drugs, trafficking and ransomware

        That sounds like the sister agency to Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The party agency and the regrets agency.

  • by Gavino ( 560149 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:45PM (#64991995)
    We have our Lord and Saviour (Trump) heading to the Oval Office, and Satoshis heading to the moon (on a Musk rocket). Life is good.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:48PM (#64992001)

    Bitcoin has full support from Trump and some kind of rumored integration into government.

    I don't say this as anyone who has any real stake in it; I believe in more solid things. But BitCoin I think is going to fly now for a while.

    If anyone shorted Greyscale I feel for you... I thought about it but didn't want to jump in front of what I could see was a fast moving train.

    Bitcoin may yet have a bad crash (I man like 90% bad) ahead as many predict but not for years now.

    Even if you agree with this all use utmost caution before jumping onto it. Could easily have some kind of pullback as I think hitting 100k will have a lot of people selling for a while to lock in gains... balanced though by many people possibly wanting in now that it's hit that level.

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      Bitcoin has full support from Trump and some kind of rumored integration into government.

      which is why there is a rush right now and "value" goes up. there's a lot that could go wrong with that though, and besides it's still possible for him to fall from grace haflway into his term for whatever other reason, dragging down crypto expectations with him. i would guess that he is profiting from this right now or has already made a deal, just in case.

      • ... fall from grace ...

        I look at the US and wonder, at point did this become the president the US had to have? I think it's when Trump suggested Serge Kovaleski was a spastic, to use the unpopular but accurate word. (The reporter is mobility impaired, not suffering uncontrollable spasms.) I won't be outraged that a disabled person was treated poorly. I won't be disgusted that Trump bullied a vulnerable person. But the entire GOP ignoring and excusing Trump's pettiness, is unforgivable: That's when the country decided decency

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @07:26AM (#64992761)

      Bitcoin may yet have a bad crash (I man like 90% bad) ahead as many predict but not for years now.

      You are too optimistic. What will actually happen is a crash by > 100% and the network will vanish. It has happened often enough for similar scams that this is a reliable prediction. And no, it will not get any "government integration". What it eventually will get is outlawed, because the damage it does by supporting organized crime is huge. A reliable lower bound number form Germany says 2600 EUR per citizen per year for cybercrime, most of which is ransomware. That is about 5% of everybody's salaries. And that is an _underestimation_ as it only is form the companies that were willing to report damage to their trade-organization.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.

    After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.

    But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currency, and

  • by xtal ( 49134 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:59PM (#64992029)

    It goes to infinity or zero.

    Bitcoin has been very good to me. I donâ(TM)t get the shade and hate; I learned about it here a very long time ago.

    Hodl.

    • Jealousy is strong in the anti-Bitcoin community.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @06:02AM (#64992635)

      Bitcoin has been very good to me. I donâ(TM)t get the shade and hate

      All gambling addicts say the casino has been good to them. The "hate" is just those people correctly calling out a speculative investment for what it is, pure speculation. You're free to do it, just don't pretend your investment is underpinned by anything more than hope, hope that the line goes up, hope that there's enough criminals out there fleecing the poor to keep the system moving, hope that people keep buying into the fantasy that it is the future of finance.

      No joke last Saturday I threw 10EUR into a pokies machine because I was bored. I got 60EUR in return. I therefore recommend that *EVERYONE* start gambling. It's sooooo lucrative. - Sincerely, A Survivor.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        All gambling addicts say the casino has been good to them.

        Exact;y. Deep denial and completely unfounded optimism are standard symptoms of gambling addiction. Gambling does not work out for almost everybody (but the addicts think _they_ will be the exception) and unregulated gambling does never work out for society. If you have 10 bankrupt people for everyone that became a millionaire, that millionaire will never be able to compensate the massive damage done and will usually not even be willing to try. Sure, homeless people _look_ cheap, but they are not, especiall

    • I also found Bitcoin from the July 2010 Slashdot article, and it's given me quite the learning experience in finance and coding. For example, I taught myself FPGA programming, and in the process co-developed the first opensource mining hardware. I learned about fiat money as debt and all kinds of traditional investments. I also bugged Satoshi about making the code more portable, as it was full of x86/little-endian/Windows assumptions.

      I think I've identified a few reasons why so many (lay)?people hate cr

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It will go to zero, or actually, it will go negative. Running a crapcoin-scam is expensive. At some point the influx of new fools will be too small to sustain it and the network of miners sustaining it will just vanish.

      The only question is when. At that time for every dollar somebody made, somebody else will lose significantly more than a dollar. Many people will go bankrupt and that is a huge cost to society.

      The only reason the morons and the immoral assholes that actually understand what is going on are

  • Thoughts? Yes: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NoMoreDupes ( 8410441 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @10:59PM (#64992031)

    Thoughts, nocoiners?

    My thoughts? Yes: that the Slashdot staff have a vested interest in cryptocurrencies. [slashdot.org]

  • Thoughts, nocoiners?

    If you can find a greater fool, then more power to you.

    No matter what it sells for, it's still worth less than a tulip bulb \_()_/

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is exactly worth nothing outside of organized crime (money laundering). As soon as society decides the constant increasing drain from cybercrime has become unacceptable (it is currently about 5% of _everybodies_ yearly income in Germany, for example), that one use will vanish and it will crash to zero.

  • every time I remember seeing bitcoin for sale on ebay for about a nickel and thinking, "Why waste my money?"

  • Bitcoin has "value" for one reason only: the maximum number of units (coins) in circulation at a given time is mathematically limited. In theory this makes BTC an inflation-proof asset. But now that speculators are trading stories of the fortunes they made, or missed making, as BTC ascended, they are becoming aare that othe cryptos gpw been minted, using the same math as BTC.

    So right now, there are two tribes of utter fools flooding social media. One tribe crows "I hold Bitcoin, and it's now over $100K. I'm

    • Bitcoin has already been around for twice as long as the 1929 bull run. How many decades of Bitcoin not crashing and burning do you suppose there have to be before you admit you are wrong?

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Bitcoin has "value" for one reason only: the maximum number of units (coins) in circulation at a given time is mathematically limited. In theory this makes BTC an inflation-proof asset.

      Actually, no. That theory assumes at least some solid real-world value. Bitcoin has no legitimate value and actually costs quite a bit to even keep going. It does have some criminal value for money-laundering for organized crime. But as ransomware and the like becomes far too much drain on the economy, that use will go away at some point, and then it will be completely without value.

  • I'm a nocoiner (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 05, 2024 @12:30AM (#64992187)

    And this is the best, most genuine article post in a good long time. Just taking the piss and having fun. Cheers

  • Are we trying to stir the pot, so-called editors?

    In any case, the “value” of bitcoin is and will always be arbitrary. The fact that you can make money from it, and the fact that some people have made a LOT of money from it, is no proof of value; fundamentally, it’s no different from gambling or a Ponzi scheme.

    There may well still be plenty of money to be made on the coin. That’s fine, go nuts. I’ll keep my money in something with potentially less upside but definitely less down

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      And there is another thing: For anybody that made a dollar on crapcoins, somebody else will lose more on them. Running a crapcoin-scam is not cheap and a lot of the money just goes to heating up the ecosphere. That money is irretrievably lost.

  • And the Tulip mania.

    Those both ended with the collapse of their prices and a lot of economic damage. Is there any good reason to believe: 'This time will be different?'

    • Because tulip mania lasted less than one growing season, while Bitcoin has been rising for 16 years.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Is there any good reason to believe: 'This time will be different?'

      Obviously, there is not. The other thing that is not different is that too many people are still idiots. Obviously, most of the "investors" will not recover their money, let along make a profit. And then many will become a burden on society.

  • Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It has a price though.

    That price is 100% based on NOTHING OTHER THAN what will someone pay for it tomorrow, which hopefully is more than I paid for it today.

    Yes and in Monte Carlo, Macao, Las Vegas, the price of the next roulette wheel spin is the same.

    This is news (or "slashdot news") why?

    F all the cryptobros. It's just gambling someone tomorrow is stupider than you're smart today. Period. Sure, it's unregulated. So is my handshake at a bar before I take your fiver or

  • Back when TigerDirect began accepting it as a means of payment, I spend about half a Bitcoin on an Intel NUC. I still have that computer around somewhere. I'd have to say, for a $50k computer, it's kind of underwhelming.

    In hindsight, I should've taken my own advice [slashdot.org] and held onto my Bitcoin until it was worth enough to buy a Tesla. C'est la vie.

  • Bitcoin is strictly a commodity. It might be safer than gold to own. But money as a medium of exchange - currency Bitcoin is not. abitcoin is behaving more and more like a Pink Sheet security offering - a Box Job they call it. Where a set limited number of shares are not available or traded. Scarcity artificially inflates and then suddenly at a future high price securities( stocks) are pulled out of the box entered and exchanged for real cash — money.
    That’s Bitcoin

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Gold cannot crash to zero. Gold has about half of its market price as solid industrial usefulness. Crapcoins can crash to zero at any moment.

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @06:01AM (#64992633)

    Trump himself called it a scam, and now he's all for it. And if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that this profoundly unprincipled man will back anything sketchy that can earn him a buck.

    It's gaining "value" solely because scammers are banking on the chief scammer running the scam from the White House.

    It's utterly disgusting, and as always, it's hard-working Americans who produce actual value who will probably lose out in the end. But hey, they're also the ones who voted the damn convicted felon in office.

    • Trump himself called it a scam, and now he's all for it.

      Trump is happy to flip-flop to any position that will win him more votes. That's why he's anti-abortion now, and why he favors Bitcoin.

      A certain percentage of the population was willing to vote for him because of that, and probably nearly no one voted against him because of it.

  • by TheStatsMan ( 1763322 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @06:22AM (#64992671)

    about coin to dollars conversions?

    • Because they recognise these "coins" for what they are: Nothing more than a speculative investment. The fact that cryptobros themselves stopped calling them currencies tells you everything.

  • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @07:12AM (#64992739)
    Still has no functional value and consumes vast quantities of resources and energy. Still an enormous ponzi scheme.
  • by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Thursday December 05, 2024 @10:36AM (#64993191) Homepage Journal

    I don't "coin" but I'm not against it, either. As I usually say, I think Bitcoin is a "neat idea."

    But Bitcoin is still nearly useless, and for something to be this old and still not having stabilized, is sign of badness. I don't expect it to be "pegged" to the dollar but it's shown itself to be so volatile/independent (it ain't the dollar's value which is changing this fast) that I think the ever-changing exchange rate is based in some kind of unreality or deficiency.

    Euros, for example, don't do this.

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