Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin hits $10,000

bloomberg.com

211–220 of 389 posts

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#211
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven." Ordinary people have never heard of bitcoin. I have relatives working in finance who don't understand bitcoin.

At this point the arguments for or against the idea of cryptocurrency are pretty irrelevant. Bitfinex has injected millions of dollars of fake money into the ecosystem, users are reporting an ability to withdraw money from it on Reddit, and their Twitter account's last message was reports of a DDoS two days ago with no updates. https://twitter.com/bitfinex https://www.reddit.com/r/bitfinex/comments/7fx9z9/bitfinex_w.…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Who is going to bail out the first big BTC crisis? No one.

Think about what bailing out means. It was a transfer of wealth from taxpayers and money-balance holders to Wall St banks, the US gov't and a few select private corporations. Now I don't mean to be patronizing, but it is useful for us to ask ourselves, "how were we convinced that this was desirable?"

No amount of debate over the validity of the 2008-2009 financial crisis and resolution makes bitcoin any less of a fiat currency.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#213
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem is that Satoshi's coins are watched like a hawk. Satoshi can't liquidate any of them, or even really move them without causing an immediate reaction in the community. Exchanges might halt trading, whilst it would immediately give away his or her identity. If the price of bitcoin doesn't crash following a coin movement, Satoshi's life is most certainly at risk. If it does, then the coins are worth not…

Satoshi is almost certainly dead. No living person could resist the temptation to talk about their creation of a 100 billion dollar phenomenon. Two plausible candidates who died at about the right time are Hal Finney and Dave Kleiman.

Edit: I misread the initial post, but still think what I wrote is reasonably relevant. Had I been Satoshi (and I'm not), I would have no trouble not talking about it.

I think this is unlikely. I think it is much more likely that he deleted his keys -- on purpose. Despite the common "Bitcoin was created as a scam" sentiment, I see very little evidence of this. Satoshi appears to have just been a very idealistic person who thought that he was doing something useful. From the beginning he said that he shouldn't hang on to those initial coins because it would undermine the validity of the currency. Out of curiosity I've read through a fair amount of the original dev forum archives (I forget where they are, but I'm sure they are not hard to find -- last time I looked I found them right away). As far as I can tell, it is what it appears to be. Which is not, of course, to say that there aren't plenty of scammers in the Bitcoin world. It just seems that Satoshi wasn't one of them.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me try to make the case for why Bitcoin could be a useful beyond greed. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the…

You're describing money laundering and selectively choosing to represent the positive examples of it.

I think the point is that positive examples do exist, not that there are no negative examples.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#215
post #124
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's theorised they have ~1m bitcoins, at 10k each that's a 10 billion net-worth. Presumably that's enough for people to want to hunt them down and coerce them into giving up private keys https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-f...

There are plenty of billionaires in the world. Are they kidnapped with great frequency?

Their billions are liquid and can be used to buy protection (secluded homes, private transportation), Satoshi's aren't (in so far as he hasn't liquidated them).

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#216
post #17

“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…

>No one likes to talk about that though, they like to demonize bitcoin which actually does something gold could never do.

Just playing devils advocate, but you can't replicate/duplicate gold. On the other hand I could create 21M cryptocoins on a blockchain (calling them Bitcoin2 or even just Bitcoin if it pleases). I can make them function identically, similarly or more efficiently than Bitcoin. I can create a new blockchain (network) or put these coins on an existing blockchain (say the Ethereum blockchain). How much would you pay for all 21M Bitcoin? How much would you pay me to create you 21M Bitcoin2 and transfer 100% of them to you?

You say Bitcoin is $10k because ordinary people understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven. If that is your premises it makes little sense to compare Bitcoin to gold, compare Bitcoin to other currencies. Why does Litecoin = $100 and Ether = $500? Bitcoin may do something gold could never do, obviously, but can it do anything any other cryptocoin/token can't?

The real irony is cryptocoins and blockchains couldn't even exist without gold, because it is a necessary component in the machines that created bitcoin, that hosts blockchain nodes, mines, hosts wallets and facilitates transactions.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me try to make the case for why Bitcoin could be a useful beyond greed. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the…

You're describing money laundering and selectively choosing to represent the positive examples of it.

money laundering is legitimising illicit profits but disguising them as legitimate income. none of the examples above fits this definition.actually, it is the opposite - protecting your legitimate gains from illegitimate actions of government.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#218

Disclaimer: I do own BTC. But I really can’t see how this is not just an instrument for some people to get very rich in a very short amount of time on the back of others. Can it reach 100k? Absolutely. 1M? Who knows. 10M/BTC? Someone on Reddit said it will get close. But in the end I do think it will be remembered as a global mania instead of the creation of a new asset class. I do believe in block chain and the valu…

I heard a rumor that it will hit 1 trillion dollars. It sounded legit.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#219
Are we going get every other bitcoin price milestone on the frontpage now?

Earlier today:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15796503

Then two days ago for 9k:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15782222

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15786821

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15779933

at 7k:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15609264

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#220
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the story that's missing here. When one of the major exchanges is starting to look insolvent and USDT is getting scarier and scarier by the day, a flight from USDT into Bitcoin is not surprising...

Tether is being issued because institutional money is coming in through USDT. https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/dail...

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
Post reply on HN