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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#31
post #13
post #7

Bitcoin have no real world use case

Bitcoin does seem to be the best payment technology for online illegal transactions. Albeit, one could argue those shouldn't be 'real' in the first place.

No, it’s a store of value like a rolex or a pot of gold. Except much more fungible. And it increases in value relatively every time new “real” money is created. I don’t agree that it’s just for illegal transactions.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#32

I think I had a coin once in a wallet long since deleted. What I could do with 5k now.

I got one better... I traded 30 bitcoins for Diablo 3 gold when Diablo 3 launched, 1m gold was about $5 and bitcoins were about $7. Was just after linode wallets got hacked.

I'll let you do the over/under on that one.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#33
post #2

It's kinda cool to be living in a tulip era like this. I wish there was some way I could make a long term bet against the the price of bitcoin, say it's price 10 years from now. Of course, this is impossible. If there is anything we have learned, and I can demonstrate that I predicted 5 years ago, it's that the definition of bitcoin is infinitely divisible. I could claim a bitcoin fork in 2027 is the true bitcoin, an…

BTC's graph is hilarious: http://i.imgur.com/IWwOgm9.png

It looks a little less ridiculous a log scale but still pretty odd.

https://i.imgur.com/tIyvGFs.png

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#34
post #2

It's kinda cool to be living in a tulip era like this. I wish there was some way I could make a long term bet against the the price of bitcoin, say it's price 10 years from now. Of course, this is impossible. If there is anything we have learned, and I can demonstrate that I predicted 5 years ago, it's that the definition of bitcoin is infinitely divisible. I could claim a bitcoin fork in 2027 is the true bitcoin, an…

BTC's graph is hilarious: http://i.imgur.com/IWwOgm9.png

Indeed it looks like a bubble, but at this point I've seen it happen so many times and not actually been a bubble. Every time is settles down to a point significantly higher than it started. At this point I've accepted these are all price corrections that over compensate and then drop back down to it's true value. Maybe this time it's truly a bubble this time, but I tend to think just repeating history.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#35

Would it be correct to say that there is a threshold where the value of a bitcoin makes it reasonable for retailers/small business/etc to invest in using them as an actual currency at the register? If that's the case, then it would make good business sense for someone nefarious to pump up the price as much as possible to reach that threshold, wait for the use to become common, then cash out. Effectively manipulating…

I don’t see why this would be the case. The utility in currency is not value, but stability; there’s little incentive to use Bitcoin if the value is not stable.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#36
I see so many people dissing the technology and rehashing old arguments.

You shouldn't consider Bitcoin as a currency but as a better form of Gold. Like gold it has a limited amount available: ~180k tons of gold and eventually 21 million bitcoins. Like gold it is a good store of value (especially as more people are dropping their gold to purchase BTC). Unlike Gold you can send it to someone else online and that means it can also be used like a currency (even thought it is not its strength).

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#37

People have been saying since it was valued at $1 that it was overvalued, or nobody should pay $1 for a virtual coin. Same people are still arguing the same thing 5 years later...

Doesn't make them wrong.

I find the idea of crypto currency, especially bitcoin, very interesting. I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful. It can't handle very many transactions per minute. And the thing that supposed to make it so great is that no one controls it. But if bitcoin becomes really important then people will want to control a lot of the mining power. Pretty soon you end up with a group of miners (or even a single miner) having enough power to influence things leaving you pretty close to someone being in charge of the thing.

It's such a fascinating idea. But in less there was someway to limit mining so people couldn't throw additional power at it I'm not sure it's useful.

As an example, you could use a block chain to enforce a ledger between a couple of different companies but you'd have to have some sort of contract it said everyone was only allowed to use one of device X for mining. That way everyone would be equal and you could easily check it because the blocks should be minded roughly evenly.

But when miners can buy additional mining capacity, and they get rewarded for doing that with more money, how does this not end up with a winner takes all situation?

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#38
post #27

People have been saying since it was valued at $1 that it was overvalued, or nobody should pay $1 for a virtual coin. Same people are still arguing the same thing 5 years later...

And now fewer and fewer can afford a whole coin.

Sure, but thankfully you don't need a whole coin for most transactions. It's not an inherently meaningful thing.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#39

Would it be correct to say that there is a threshold where the value of a bitcoin makes it reasonable for retailers/small business/etc to invest in using them as an actual currency at the register? If that's the case, then it would make good business sense for someone nefarious to pump up the price as much as possible to reach that threshold, wait for the use to become common, then cash out. Effectively manipulating…

Businesses wanting to use it probably care more about stability than anything. If there was a limited supply and it wasn't easily divisible then I'd agree with you.
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