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Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

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Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#141

Post by vasilipupkin »

rothbardrand wrote: post #132
vasilipupkin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the gist of the argument, but non industrial ( i.e. financial ) value of gold is much less than 8T, more like 1-2 T. So by this calculation max value is about 50k a bitcoin. So, upside of buying now at 3-5k is not as great

I think your numbers are reversed-- look at the PDF at the top of this page: https://www.gold.org/research/gold-demand-trends It appears that Industrial/technology use is around %5, and the rest is used as a store of value. However this is timely demand and it is clearly variable. What I can't find is the percentage of all above ground gold that is held in vaults & Jewelry vs captured in industrial uses. That would b…

Jewelry gold is just jewelry gold - it has intrinsic value because it's a nice material to make jewelry from. That value is not financial. Bitcoin can't claim that part of it. According to wikipedia, The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.

but you have to realize, part of that 40% in investments makes sense because there is a fundamental non financial use case - jewelry. Someone will always buy gold at some price to make jewelry. So, that also drives investments. So bitcoin can't claim all of that 40%

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#142

Post by rothbardrand »

random023987 wrote: post #130
rothbardrand wrote: post #126

Every time bitcoin slips a little, the anti-bitcoin crowd claims victory and it's kinda hilarious. The summer of 2015 BTC was around $200, it's now over $3,000- so up 15X in a bit over 2 years. This is failure? Why is down $500 failure but up 15X in less than 30 months not success? There are about 11 million millionaires in America. There are only ever going to be 21 million bitcoins total. That means, even just amon…

> The summer of 2015 BTC was around $200, it's now over $3,000- so up 15X in a bit over 2 years. This is failure? As a modern eTulip bubble, it's a "success" for anyone who has made money speculating. As a replacement for fiat money, it's an absolute disaster as a currency. Volatility and high transaction fees have killed any opportunity Bitcoin may have had to gain traction as a way to pay for anything besides drugs…

You can send several million dollars in under a day for about $0.50 right now. IS that "high fees"? Hell if you do it right you can do it in under an hour for under a dollar.

Any talk about it being a replacement for fiat money is evading my point. I made the point that it was a plausible good store of value, not currency.

Oh, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with using bitcoin to pay for drugs, and this argument is akin to saying that the US Dollar is evil because it is so widely used in the drug trade that every $20 bill tests positive for cocaine (so I've heard.)

As for evading currency controls, aka economic oppression- that's one of the great uses of Bitcoin that will help improve people's lives world wide.

Finally regarding tulips, you can't have it both ways- you can't say price going up is proof it's a mania and price going down is proof it's a mania. Tulips were not a revolutionary new technology.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#143

Post by artjumble »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #24
paxpelus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use coinbase then you should try to login to GDAX with same credentials. It just works and the fees are like 0.25% per trade. P.S.: GDAX is owned by Coinbase

I logged into GDAX, but it requires a webcam to complete the setup. Something that I don't have at the moment.

I blocked the webcam, then tried again and it gave me the option to upload photos of my ID instead. Not sure why that wasn't an option in the first place like it is on coinbase.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#144

Post by nwah1 »

andrewla wrote: post #95
nwah1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason for the volatility is that there is no actual use for them, and no entrenched demand via a tax system. The price of bitcoin can literally fall to zero. With fiat currency, achieving that would require the government losing its power to enforce tax collection. People losing interest in a fad seems to be a bigger risk than a governmental collapse.

I should give up on this, but I keep hearing this argument about tax collection. You can make an argument that fixed dollar amount taxes (almost like property taxes) drive direct demand for the currency. I need to pay $100, so I need to get that $100 -- if it costs me all my horses and gold to get it, then I have to buy it. You can even argue historically (in a manner analogous to the "Mises Regression Theorem") that…

The US federal government financed itself for the 19th century using land sales, tariffs, and little else.

Selling land, for USD, and USD only, is certainly one way that it made USD valuable.

Property taxes are very much the same kind of thing, as you mention. In effect, it makes landowners into tenants to the extent that the land is taxed.

The government, being defined as the entity with sovereignty over a given region and a monopoly on force in that region, it is in effect a landlord at root. And it can make people pay to live in the area it controls. It currently strays from this role by taxing other things as well, and in so doing is generally destructive to output.

But taxes on land and natural resources have no deadweight loss and historically have been the major source of government revenue.

So, in effect, fiat currency is land-backed. And land value comes from the value of the location, the desirability of living there, and the productive capacity of the region... which are in turn affected by government policy.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#145

Post by stefano »

baddox wrote: post #137
random023987 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The summer of 2015 BTC was around $200, it's now over $3,000- so up 15X in a bit over 2 years. This is failure? As a modern eTulip bubble, it's a "success" for anyone who has made money speculating. As a replacement for fiat money, it's an absolute disaster as a currency. Volatility and high transaction fees have killed any opportunity Bitcoin may have had to gain traction as a way to pay for anything besides drugs…

Remember though that "replacement for fiat money" isn't the only goal or measure of success for people who like bitcoin.

The usefulness as a currency or as anything else is irrelevant. Getting rich is the goal. It doesn't matter that the money comes from a bigger fool, or from someone who has to buy bitcoin to pay a ransom.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#146

Post by nwah1 »

nwah1 wrote: post #144
andrewla wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should give up on this, but I keep hearing this argument about tax collection. You can make an argument that fixed dollar amount taxes (almost like property taxes) drive direct demand for the currency. I need to pay $100, so I need to get that $100 -- if it costs me all my horses and gold to get it, then I have to buy it. You can even argue historically (in a manner analogous to the "Mises Regression Theorem") that…

The US federal government financed itself for the 19th century using land sales, tariffs, and little else. Selling land, for USD, and USD only, is certainly one way that it made USD valuable. Property taxes are very much the same kind of thing, as you mention. In effect, it makes landowners into tenants to the extent that the land is taxed. The government, being defined as the entity with sovereignty over a given reg…

The current total value of all US land and natural resources is in the tens of trillions, by most estimates.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#147

Post by redog »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #124
redog wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can somebody explain what will happen if U.S starts to feel the pressure from Bitcoin and kills it at the point of exchange? Can you explain how they would? To me this sounds like saying the US would ban World of Warcraft cash.

the issue is at some point you need to be able to convert btc to dollars. and if that avenue is completely closed, value of btc will drop.

But that's not the long term plan. The way the community is pushing is out with fiat. If that's the case then the government is going to still want taxes....The way I see it they're either going to lose revenue due to the new market or facilitate cryptos to be converted for payments of taxes and all things electronic....If Bitcoin is THE success it claims to want to be.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#148

Post by ringaroundthetx »

koolba wrote: post #2

> The cryptocurrency traded at $3,601.40 at 7:58 a.m. in New York, far below an all-time high of $5,013.91 set earlier this month. That's a 28% drop from the high. For normal securities a price drop like that in less than a month would be considered a crash. Does it count for BTC as well or are the elevated levels at the start of the month with too thin a volume to be considered legit?

Cryptoassets move 30% in price any given week.

CNBC will call it a crash. The network continues to function as well as it did in 2011 when it traded for $1.

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#149

Post by stefano »

mixedCase wrote: post #75
davidbeep wrote: post #71

China not loving bitcoin and not being onboard isn't news. A communist government not agreeing with a decentralized currency shouldn't come as a surprise. Speculators who invest should understand that clearly, and not go into panic when China makes decisions that are very China-like. The good news is that it's a perfect time to buy more bitcoin and ether at a discounted price.

"This is good for bitcoin"

Price goes down? Cheap coins!

Price goes up? To the moon!

A government accepts bitcoins? It's the future!

A government doesn't accept bitcoins? They're scared, it means we're winning!

Re: Bitcoin dropping after BTC China said it is closing

#150

Post by ringaroundthetx »

nwah1 wrote: post #10
paxpelus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cryptocurrency world 10% daily change is considered normal. The markets were extremely volatile in the past and as years pass by they become more stable. We are not there yet but I believe in the future as the market cap increases and more people get involved the price will stabilize more and such changes will be considered a crash. Also do not forget the people that had money in BTCC exchange. I suppose many of t…

Tesla is considered an infamously overvalued stock, and even Elon Musk has publicly questioned the price in the past. It has had the highest number of shorts for any stock. Despite making 1/100th as many cars as the big manufacturers, it has a market cap higher than Ford and GM. That is not exactly a great comparison. A normal blue chip won't fluctuate more than ten percent in a month, let alone in a day. But currenc…

the -coin in bitcoin and the -currency in cryptocurrency are misnomers and skeumorphs simply to make an abstract concept more relatable than "transferable cryptographic hash units"
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