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Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

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Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#141

Post by rb808 »

joefourier wrote: post #31

Notice how almost all news of Bitcoin now are about its price. Bitcoin used to be exciting in both technical and economical aspects, but has now become just a store of value entirely driven by speculation. Other technically superior cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases, boasting much faster and cheaper transactions and real anonymity in the case of Monero. Bitcoin takes more tha…

> has little uses outside of being worth a lot of money.

Right on the button. Make a lot of money, keep buying, everyone is happy.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#142

Post by feedjoelpie »

0bsidian wrote: post #29
weddpros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no pyramid scheme. It's a hyped asset, to say the least, but there's no pyramid. Like a hyped startup, it doesn't do much yet, but it is promising, so people buy it. It may be "worth" much or zero in the end, it all depends on the final outcomes. It's also the easiest/cheapest/most open asset to trade (depending on where you trade). In the long term, Bitcoin can be seen as a safe heaven in case of economic ch…

I think most of the people putting larger checks into Bitcoin are betting that it will become a store of value asset. Going from memory, a recent Bloomberg article called Bitcoin: "Gold for millennials". Or, similarly, Peter Thiel said recently [1]: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoi…

Gold without millenia of collective psychology to give it staying power as a store of value once more useful, cheaper, and faster to transact cryptocurrencies get any uptake.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#143

Post by ogig »

joefourier wrote: post #31

Notice how almost all news of Bitcoin now are about its price. Bitcoin used to be exciting in both technical and economical aspects, but has now become just a store of value entirely driven by speculation. Other technically superior cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases, boasting much faster and cheaper transactions and real anonymity in the case of Monero. Bitcoin takes more tha…

> (..), but [bitcoin] it has little uses outside of being worth a lot of money.

I keep reading this and sounds false to me. Why do you ignore the illegal drugs market? Lots of people uses bitcoin daily to buy and sell substances. You might have a moral opinion about that fact, but it remains true. You might think it's a small, or temporary market, but I disagree based on the history of humans and drugs use.

While I don't fully disagree that speculation might be the main drive of the price, let's not forget that the are some real, big, uses of bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#144

Post by eyezick »

tom_mellior wrote: post #107
joefourier wrote: post #31

Notice how almost all news of Bitcoin now are about its price. Bitcoin used to be exciting in both technical and economical aspects, but has now become just a store of value entirely driven by speculation. Other technically superior cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases, boasting much faster and cheaper transactions and real anonymity in the case of Monero. Bitcoin takes more tha…

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with…

I wouldn't say Ether is trying to replace Bitcoin's use case (at least not yet).

The real, better cryptocurrency will probably be a stable token running on Ethereum.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#145

Post by dotluis »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #124
lin_lin wrote: post #27

A few years back I had 10 bitcoins and bought weed on the Silk Road with them. Hmm, imagine I held onto it :)

Yeah that happened to a lot of people, myself included.

And it's going to happen to everybody, since the Bitcoin is deflationary.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#146

Post by tlrobinson »

madamelic wrote: post #54
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big banks are already looking seriously into cryptocurrencies. Like seriously.

I think you might be confusing cryptocurrency with blockchain. Cryptocurrency uses blockchain but blockchain isn't cryptocurrency. Blockchain technology is already incredibly useful for banks doing interbank currency trading iirc. I guess you could be talking about banks doing crypto trading, then I would guess that they are but a number are still stuck in the stone ages.

A “blockchain” without a cryptocurrency facilitating decentralization and incentivizing security doesn’t solve any new problem.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#147

Post by weddpros »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #106
weddpros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no pyramid scheme. It's a hyped asset, to say the least, but there's no pyramid. Like a hyped startup, it doesn't do much yet, but it is promising, so people buy it. It may be "worth" much or zero in the end, it all depends on the final outcomes. It's also the easiest/cheapest/most open asset to trade (depending on where you trade). In the long term, Bitcoin can be seen as a safe heaven in case of economic ch…

It's like a pyramid scheme in that so long as people keep buying in on the hope of a profit you'll keep making more and more. As soon as people say "hang on this is a con" and convert to another currency then this factor of the supposed value of Bitcoin could deflate to zero. It's not formalised like a pyramid or MLM scheme but it has some of the same structure.

The same can be said of any startup/company.

Founders throw 1k$ in the pot, investors 100M$, the public 1B$, yet the founder has benefited a lot, by being there first.

If people start thinking "he's a con", the company's value will drop to 0. Bankruptcy.

Is the whole stock market a pyramid scheme?

A market isn't a pyramid scheme just because you didn't enter it at the beginning (that's also true for real estate).

The alternative would be a market where you'd benefit more if you enter last, which means there would be no incentive for anybody to enter first and create the market. That's why the alternative doesn't exist and markets do reward the first mover.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#148

Post by grey-area »

weddpros wrote: post #103
grey-area wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. People actually use other currencies as a medium of exchange first, and store of value second (usually they purchase assets to store value long term). Bitcoin is the other way round (at present at least).

Most currencies suffer from inflation: it's more interesting to buy now than later because your wealth will go down with time. BTC with its fixed supply works the opposite direction, devoid of inflation: you'd rather keep your BTC as a store of value that will increase, than spend it on goods you can still buy later for fewer BTC.

QED. It's designed as a good store of value, not a good medium of exchange which people want to spend.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#150

Post by simias »

lallysingh wrote: post #112
simias wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrencies have a niche use, mainly to buy things on the black market but also for small peer-to-peer international payments when other options are not practical. For this reason I don't expect that cryptocurrencies will completely disappear any time soon. However the value of bitcoin is mainly driven by speculation at this point, a currency that's so volatile is very difficult to use if you're a business. At b…

> However the value of bitcoin is mainly driven by speculation at this point, a currency that's so volatile is very difficult to use if you're a business. At best you accept it at the current exchange rate and you immediately convert it to fiat. Anything else is very risky. Note that any business that already deals in multiple currencies (say, having offices in two countries) already runs an equivalent risk. And many…

Sure, but that's why most international trade deals in Dollars, Euros or some other reasonably stable currency. The EUR/USD change rate does not typically vary by orders of magnitude within a few years, the Bitcoin/USD exchange rate does. The risk is wildly different.
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