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One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

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Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#31

Post by nnfy »

jhspaybar wrote: post #23

My dad just texted me today asking if I owned bitcoin and if he should pick some up. I described it as uninsured highly volatile fine art(can be destroyed/lost) with a huge counter-party risk if he doesn't have the technical ability to store his own coins. Does anyone out there have a better analogy to scare family/friends away from it?

Why are you trying to scare them? Just explain to them that it is high risk.

But there is a strong potential future for btc, and in spite of all the fear mongering, BTC has so far come back from every crash. You're not just throwing away money if you spend a couple hundred of your otherwise disposable income on some btc. Buying at any point in the past would have yielded a payoff today.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#32

Post by komali2 »

purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

I haven't been convinced that this has happened before, so other than "not diversifying is dumb," anybody that says with any authority "you should not be investing a small amount of money in cryptocurrency" has an equally strong argument as someone that says "you should be investing a small amount of money in cryptocurrency."

I say as long as you follow centuries-old investment advice (diversify, always have a backup plan, have enough cash for a crash), there's no reason not to explore a new investment instrument. AKA, "fuck it, why not?"

Depending on how much you make I don't see why not invest "only $1000," as long as your other tested investment instruments are already qualified (emergency savings, 401k/roth/whatever, stocks, bonds, int'l investments).

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#33

Post by and0 »

nickysielicki wrote: post #22
purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

Why are you so sure that it's a bubble?

Not OP but as someone familiar with BTC tech / history I still haven't discovered any real use for it. As in, issues 99% of people in first-world countries have with fiat that it solves, rather than exacerbate (let alone the other massive hassles with using BTC).

It seems to only exist for speculation. Its meteoric rise in the face of all this screams bubble to me. (But.. I've also been saying this for a while.)

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#34

Post by gruez »

xapata wrote: post #29
pjc50 wrote: post #17

That's a lot of users. How many of them are distinct human beings? How would that be verified?

Probably a tiny fraction. I'd guess that an algorithm recognized that buying 100 Bitcoin spread across 100k accounts is better than from 1 account.

Do orderbooks display account information? AFAIK 1 person putting 1000 orders and 1000 people each putting in 1 order looks identical (unless you're the exchange operator)

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#35

Post by komali2 »

and0 wrote: post #33
nickysielicki wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so sure that it's a bubble?

Not OP but as someone familiar with BTC tech / history I still haven't discovered any real use for it. As in, issues 99% of people in first-world countries have with fiat that it solves, rather than exacerbate (let alone the other massive hassles with using BTC). It seems to only exist for speculation. Its meteoric rise in the face of all this screams bubble to me. (But.. I've also been saying this for a while.)

Really? I often buy drugs with BTC. I have friends that use it to buy software.

I guess "but that's illegal!" is a strong argument for those that have a lot of trust in governments. I... don't... so I'm happy to use non-governmental instruments. I still pay my taxes and contribute, I'm not an anarchist, I just like having means to express value that aren't controlled by governments.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#36

Post by komali2 »

nnfy wrote: post #31
jhspaybar wrote: post #23

My dad just texted me today asking if I owned bitcoin and if he should pick some up. I described it as uninsured highly volatile fine art(can be destroyed/lost) with a huge counter-party risk if he doesn't have the technical ability to store his own coins. Does anyone out there have a better analogy to scare family/friends away from it?

Why are you trying to scare them? Just explain to them that it is high risk. But there is a strong potential future for btc, and in spite of all the fear mongering, BTC has so far come back from every crash. You're not just throwing away money if you spend a couple hundred of your otherwise disposable income on some btc. Buying at any point in the past would have yielded a payoff today.

Can people elaborate why they are downvoting this? I hold a similar opinion - as long as your other investment instruments are intelligently diversified and filled-out, why not spend a small % on bitcoin? As nnfy has said, any amount in the past would have yielded payoff today.

"But a crash!" is not an argument alone. Every single other investment instrument I'm aware of has had a crash.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#37

Post by dragontamer »

apthnz wrote: post #16
seanalltogether wrote: post #6

I'd be curious to know at this point what amount of bitcoin transactions are actually retail focused. There was a big push a couple years back by users wanting to make actual purchases with bitcoin and helping to build the infrastructure around that. Does this retail side of bitcoin still exist, or is everyone just mining and selling -> buying and holding?

As far as I know, most Bitcoin transactions take ~10mins to get confirmed, so I'm not sure the current infrastructure would work for retail. Admittedly I don't know what would need to be changed to speed up transaction confirmations to the point where you could use it in retail situations.

10-minutes isn't that big of a deal. ACH transactions used to take 3 days for example.

The real big deal is that currently, BTC transaction fees are like $5+ right now. So its cheaper to use Paypal than to use BTC at the current prices.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#38

Post by jcousins »

seanalltogether wrote: post #6

I'd be curious to know at this point what amount of bitcoin transactions are actually retail focused. There was a big push a couple years back by users wanting to make actual purchases with bitcoin and helping to build the infrastructure around that. Does this retail side of bitcoin still exist, or is everyone just mining and selling -> buying and holding?

The largest Bitcoin payment processor for retail is Bitpay, I've used them on a few websites. They enable shops to accept Bitcoin with a locked in exchange rate, shielding them from the volatility and the need to even hold and manage cryptocurrency. They charge a 1% settlement fee, which I believe is competitive compared to traditional payment processors.

Hard to say what proportion of transactions are retail driven, but Bitpay did write about their progress towards a $1B annual payment volume milestone recently[1] which is a drop in the ocean compared to the multi-billion dollar daily trade volumes on exchanges.

[1] https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#39

Post by nostrademons »

purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

Eh, the SEC warning a couple months ago was to Bitcoin as Alan Greenspan's "Irrational Exuberance" Dec 1996 warning was to the dot-com bubble. In 1996 the dot-com bubble was just getting started. We've got a while to go before this one goes up in flames.

The sign to watch out for is when you have personal friends investing their life savings in Bitcoin - not $100 here and there, but $100k. And not 100K people in a single day (that's peanuts in the grand scheme of consumer markets...I've run Harry Potter fansites with more users than that, and it wasn't even one of the big ones), but tens of millions.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#40

Post by 27182818284 »

purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

> "only $100" or "only $1000

If they're truly using the word "only" when they describe it I do not think you should worry. If they're saying something like "I put in a $100 so this better pay off!" that's a much bigger cause for concern.

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