Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#31

Post by cs702 »

Because it provides a highly uncorrelated alternative to both (1) precious metals like gold and (2) sound currencies like the US Dollar and the Euro. Bitcoin will coexist with them for as long as the Internet exists and encryption works.

In Zimbabwe, where most citizens don't have sufficient or easy access to a sound currency, the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed past US$10,000: http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/africa/zimbabwe-bitcoin-surge/...

Here's a link to something I wrote in 2011 about Bitcoin's potential for long-term price appreciation -- in it I mention not only Zimbabwe's longtime issues with money, but also those of other countries, including Argentina in the early 2000's, Belarus in the years leading to 2002, Bolivia in the mid-1980’s, Brazil in the early 1990’s, Indonesia in 1997, Mexico in December 1994, Poland circa 1991, Russia in August 1998; South Korea in 1997, Thailand in 1997, and Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s. This is far from a complete list of countries that have had major currency problems. Currency crises are pretty common as you go back in history.

https://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential-adop...

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#32

Post by celticninja »

6d6b73 wrote: post #22
xchaotic wrote: post #8

By design, Bitcoin is scarce - there will only be 20999999.9769 bitcoins ever made. Contrast that with USD where more and more money is being printed or added to the system via: quantative easing increasing federal debt ceiling So that is one factor. The other is simple supply and demand - more and more people want to invest in bitcoin for speculative reasons, not as a means to buy goods and services but to heard in…

At any point number of bitcoins can change.. It might be another fork, but that number is not set in stone afik

It is one of the basic pillars of bitcoin that the supply is limited, it is unlikely that a fork which minted new coins would be accepted, you can create a fork but that fork is not bitcoin. 1 Bitcoin is divisible by 100,000,000.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#33

Post by Xixi »

theklub wrote: post #17

I've said this before, my non-educated analysis of the situation... There is no reason for it not to go up..there is a finite amount and people are buying because its going up. Each time someone buys bitcoin it goes up because typically people are only going to sell above what they paid. It's not a stock, there isn't a huge company behind bitcoin trying to satisfy people. It's a store of value and a way of transferri…

It's trust: if people in general stop trusting Bitcoin its value will very rapidely converge to nil. Because there's nothing to back up its value, it will stay there and never recover, and will be remembered as the 21st century tulip bulb.

On the other hand take gold: as a metal, it has little practical use (compared to its availability, it's not that scarce), yet its value is still up there after several thousand years of use. Why? Because there's a consensus that it's worth something, and trust that this value will remain (and even go up) in case of war/disaster/etc. Bitcoin could be a new gold. That's highly hypothetical.

Don't invest what you cannot afford to lose.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#34

Post by celticninja »

xendo wrote: post #15

Some reasons behind bitcoin rising so fast: CBOE announces plans to launch futures and options trading for Bitcoin[0]. Amazon buying cryptocurrency domains[1]. Bitcoin segwit2x hard fork coming[2]. Snowball effect If you are looking for an investment advice for cryptocurrencies then a Fortune Teller may be your best bet, but please don't invest more than a couple % of your savings. [0] https://seekingalpha.com/articl…

The domains story is old news being brought up again. IIRC they were bought in 2013.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#35

Post by asafira »

theklub wrote: post #27
asafira wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that means it isn't scarce: if there was a supply of water (and you could buy it in any amount) and people were buying it up and selling it on a secondary market, it would still cause the price to go up.

Water isn't bitcoin though.. you can meaningfully divide a bitcoin down to .0001 and give it to someone. You can't really trade drops of water.

Why can't you trade drops of water? If people were interested (for eye drops it aerosols, for example), why not?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#37

Post by skypedog5 »

In a way, the same problem exists with Bitcoin where the supply is basically a fixed quantity that expands at less than 1% a year while the number of those wanting to speculate in it, expands like a pyroclastic eruption. This drives the price ever higher, increasing volatility and making it even less likely that anyone would adopt it for normal transaction activity. The participant speculators smack their lips while they drive their protege currency further and further away from it’s intended purpose. The same thing happens in conventional Mining stock promotion, the price of the stock becomes the material and tangible nature of the enterprise while the plans, potential and possibilities of the ore body, the very thing that speculators should be considering, become more and more amorphous and immaterial. In simple terms, the cart is before the horse.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#39

Post by appleflaxen »

theklub wrote: post #30
nonsince wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that still means that the price _per bitcoin_ will keep increasing.

That's fine, I'm not talking about the price. I just mean its not really scarce when you can divide it up so much and trade it. The scarcity is fake. It's like saying there is only 10 trillion dollars in a bank so the trillions are scarce if I'm only going to trade 1 trillion at a time.

i don't understand your reasoning.

it seems like you're saying potato chips aren't scarce, because I can break the chips in my bag up until everyone in the world has a piece of potato chip, and thereby feed the world.

in economic terms, scarcity means that the supply is fixed. and bitcoin supply, by definition and network consensus, is fixed.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin's value rising so fast?

#40

Post by soyrunner »

celticninja wrote: post #32
6d6b73 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At any point number of bitcoins can change.. It might be another fork, but that number is not set in stone afik

It is one of the basic pillars of bitcoin that the supply is limited, it is unlikely that a fork which minted new coins would be accepted, you can create a fork but that fork is not bitcoin. 1 Bitcoin is divisible by 100,000,000.

I agree. The bitcoin number limit is fundamental. It's what shows up fiat for what that is. It's also what makes it threatened. I believe the growth of altcoins was in part to placate the financial system. Maybe not increase the total number of bitcoin that will ever exist but the creation of altcoins gives the idea that the alternative to fiat is expanding as fiat multiplies.
Post reply on HN