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Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

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Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#31

Post by jron »

eli wrote: post #19
adamnemecek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or are people gambling on the value of it? Welcome to investing. Adoption is success.

Does a skyrocketing penny stock imply a successful company?

A penny stock that skyrockets and holds value is no longer a penny stock. Bitcoin is 8 years old and has hit $1000 USD twice now over multiple years.

The "market cap" is currently over 16 billion dollars. It would place 68th when compared with 192 countries M1 money supply (2015) data: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

The hash rate securing the network is currently at 2.5 quintillion operations per second which is really 5 quintillion SHA256 operations every second: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ Speaking of pennies... if every operation was a penny laid flat on earth, you could cover the surface of the earth, land and sea, twice over every second.

Bitcoin surpassed the penny stock phase a long time ago.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#32

Post by adamnemecek »

jbmorgado wrote: post #11
adamnemecek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or are people gambling on the value of it? Welcome to investing. Adoption is success.

Is this a currency or just a (totally speculative) stock then?

It's Forex which is both.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#33

Post by rebuilder »

hendzen wrote: post #27
rebuilder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but it's also the only thing you can expect if Bitcoin succeeds. Eventually the volatility should subside somewhat, as the market grows. It already has, although obviously it's still a roller coaster ride. How much volatility an uncontrolled currency exhibits should be interesting to see if Bitcoin sticks around for good.

Why exactly will the volatility ever subside? Currencies that are considered stable are not magically so - this is the result of a careful balancing act by central banks. Bitcoin doesn't have an equivalent entity managing the rate of increase in the money supply.

I'm not saying it will go away, I'm just saying, as the trading volume and usage of BTC increases, the amount of money it takes to move the market grows higher. This should result in lower volatility than we have now, but how much lower is an open question we'll see answered if Bitcoin keeps growing.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#34

Post by pg314 »

kneel wrote: post #10

Bitcoin is living up to it's reputation as digital gold. The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin, Venezuelans are running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin. And to a lesser extent some Indians are escaping the Rupee. It'll be really interesting to see how governments try to deal with decentralized currencies if they really take off. Governments lose a lot of control when they can't control money.

It's hard to get reliable numbers of the number of Venezuelans having bitcoin. According to [1], surbitcoin.com had 85,000 users in November 2016 (on a population of 30 million). Quartz reported in November 2016 a weekly bitcoin volume below 400 bitcoin on localbitcoin.com. That is not bad, but I would not call it Venezuelans running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin.

One of the problems is that you would have to be crazy to want to sell bitcoin for Bolivares if you can't immediately spend them.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela...

[2] http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates...

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#36

Post by readhn »

mrb wrote: post #22
67726e wrote: post #2

OK, I'll be that guy. Is this actually intellectually stimulating to hackers? Should I start posting stock tickers for karma?

There has been so many critics of cryptocurrencies on HN that hopefully this 3-year high makes people stop and ponder on why Bitcoin has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectation over the last 8 years...

The psychology of any market is the same. Nothing has changed in centuries.

What goes up...just come down.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#37

Post by pg314 »

mrb wrote: post #22
67726e wrote: post #2

OK, I'll be that guy. Is this actually intellectually stimulating to hackers? Should I start posting stock tickers for karma?

There has been so many critics of cryptocurrencies on HN that hopefully this 3-year high makes people stop and ponder on why Bitcoin has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectation over the last 8 years...

> beyond anyone's wildest expectation over the last 8 years...

Some people were saying it was going to take over the world and replace fiat currencies. That hasn't happened yet. And when it crossed $1000 for the first time, some people expected it to keep going up exponentially.

It's gone beyond the expectations of many sceptics, I give you that.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#38

Post by stale2002 »

jacobush wrote: post #28
smokeyj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder what other essential functions of society can be digitized, decentralized, and put out of reach of irresponsible government entities.

Into the reach of irresponsible private entities

The difference being that irresponsible governments use force to require you to use their services.

At least if a private party screws me over, I can stop doing business with them.

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#39

Post by jacobush »

stale2002 wrote: post #38
jacobush wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Into the reach of irresponsible private entities

The difference being that irresponsible governments use force to require you to use their services. At least if a private party screws me over, I can stop doing business with them.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars/bitcoins

Re: Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading

#40

Post by pmorici »

kneel wrote: post #14
rhino369 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it succeeding or are people gambling on the value of it?

Both although it's hard to tell how much is success and how much is speculation. Bitcoin's dirty little secret: Illegal drugs/services.

If you can't buy drugs with it then I'd argue it isn't money. In Baltimore you can trade a bottle of name brand laundry detergent for drugs. I guess that is a clean secret though.
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