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Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

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Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#71

Post by malloryerik »

natrius wrote: post #48
juanmirocks wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of transactions is close to nothing compared to credit card transactions. The current blockchain networks have to improve a lot.

To understand what's happening, you have to observe how things have evolved. Bitcoin was advertised as digital cash. Tons of nerds envisioned a future of the whole world buying coffee with Bitcoin. As it became clear that the current network could never fulfill that vision, the whole community evolved its belief system to support the value of the currency, and they did so without any leader to coordinate their action…

Lately I've been exposed to the meme that Bitcoin isn't money, ok, "Bitcoin is Bitcoin" -- another way of saying, "it's different this time."

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#72

Post by malloryerik »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #66
natrius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To understand what's happening, you have to observe how things have evolved. Bitcoin was advertised as digital cash. Tons of nerds envisioned a future of the whole world buying coffee with Bitcoin. As it became clear that the current network could never fulfill that vision, the whole community evolved its belief system to support the value of the currency, and they did so without any leader to coordinate their action…

> "Bitcoin was advertised as digital cash. Tons of nerds envisioned a future of the whole world buying coffee with Bitcoin. As it became clear that the current network could never fulfill that vision..." There is an interesting historical tidbit: Initially Satoshi didn't have a fixed block size limit. That limit was only added after a DDoS attack where absurdly large blocks flooded the network. But that was a tempora…

I'm excited about digital money. What could the effect be of a boom and crash? If bitcoin had some kind of algorithmic central bank mechanism, low transaction costs, and didn't spew CO2, I'd be in love with it. I'm half in love with Ethereum, although something there doesn't quite feel right yet, either.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#73

Post by malloryerik »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #70
malloryerik wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you can't really be saying that you consider bitcoin to be a safer place to park your money than US Treasuries? In any case, Koreans can access safe haven assets from around the globe; they don't need bitcoin for that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, after the rage of a shakeout, bitcoin were at some point banned in South Korea. Online gambling is banned (there are public service announcement ads…

I never said I consider bitcoin safer than US Treasuries. I just said I wouldn't consider US securities to be a safe bet and that even US Treasuries might be considered riskier than bitcoin. Every asset has some degree of risk. And even something that might be considered somewhat risky might even reduce the risk of a portfolio through diversification if its risk doesn't correlate significatnly with the other assets.

Everything has some degree of risk. Truer words can't be spoken. And sure, diversification is the only one free lunch, they say. But could US Treasuries be riskier than Bitcoin, under any scenario? Even if an EMP attack wiped out North America, or Washington DC and New York were both nuked, I'm not so sure. But those are the kinds of scenarios that might make it possible. Something where the United States ceased to exist. In those cases, would Bitcoin survive? Good sci-fi material.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#74

Post by mdotk »

colordrops wrote: post #68
bllguo wrote: post #15

This is a farce. There's only been negative news today and yet prices jump higher than ever. There's no conceivable way this doesn't end badly. I guess people are gambling on being lucky enough to exit before then. Edit: removed unnecessary hostility. If you have money to spare on a high risk gamble like this then by all means. But in general there's just no way everyone jumping in is fully aware of the risks.

It's the first in a new asset class that provides things that never existed before, mainly being the ability to quickly transact value over great geographic distances and national borders with zero interference from third parties. The value of that is extremely underestimated by most people, and shouldn't be so hard to grasp. Analogous examples are the Internet and Google, which provided very straightforward and simp…

the only problem is that btc is broken and it's become a "store of wealth". digital gold if you will.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#75

Post by matte_black »

Fnoord wrote: post #57
matte_black wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I know a crypto nerd who was investing all his savings into bitcoin, several years ago. Today? He’s a rich man, but he still holds the vast majority of assets in Bitcoin and has not attempted to sell them all at once. So he’s Bitcoin rich right now. I wonder what his ultimate destiny will be.

He's trying to figure out when and how to dump. The when is right before the bubble bursts (look up Nina Brink for example in dotcom burst). The how is by spending the money on businesses who accept Bitcoin. Problem is when a "Bitcoin run" (akin to bank run) starts you'll have slow, expensive transactions going down in worth compared to EUR or USD. Plus businesses can decide to stop accept BTC as currency like Steam…

I'm not really sure what it means for someone to have millions of dollars of value in Bitcoin. In practice how much of that money might someone be able to convert to cash and over how long of a time period?

I'm also not really sure what the catalyst of a Bitcoin crash would be, wouldn't it require for the vast majority of people to decide Bitcoin is no longer worth buying ever? As long as the supply of greater fools never runs out, won't there be people around who buy into every dip and keep the price going higher?

I'm still not sure if that guy is lucky or screwed with his Bitcoin investment, but he seems confident it will work out.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#76

Post by sergiotapia »

panarky wrote: post #27

It's obvious to nearly everyone that this is the world's biggest pump-and-dump scam. Sentiment on HN, Twitter and the financial press is nearly unanimously negative. Co-workers and family members are convinced this will end in tears for the foolish speculators. But one thing bugs me about all this. Historically, bubbles burst after long-time critics finally capitulate. Pyramids and Ponzis collapse when most people ha…

I will archive this comment, and ping you back if you're still on hackernews in 2020. We'll see the value of bitcoin then, and how far along adoption has gone in marketplaces such as Amazon. :)

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#77

Post by tudorconstantin »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #61
charlesdm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at NVDA and AMD -- crypto mining is most of the reason why they went up so much.

I would think miners are purchasing ASICs now, not GPUs.

There are coins that can't be mined on ASICs and they're only profitable to be mined on GPUs - Ethereum and zCash are 2 examples, but there are many more.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#78

Post by tudorconstantin »

juanmirocks wrote: post #16
arcticfox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that has been in since 2013, I don't even recognize the current scene. The only reason the vast majority of people are getting into it is to get rich. It seems totally unsustainable, but the only incentives for people on the inside are to loudly convince others to join them.

Last day I saw a magazine on cryptocurrencies in a kiosk in Germany (in German language). As Warrent Buffett used to say, "When everybody and your taxi driver talks about your stocks... it's time to sell". It's impossible to predict. Anyway, I'm investing with a buy & hold philosophy.

Crypto currencies are the first investment where everybody and your taxi driver gets to buy before the institutional investors.

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#79

Post by celdon25 »

tossaway1 wrote: post #54
zeep wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought some and I will sell when it reaches 5x if it ever does.

I'm gonna do the same but sell when it gets to 10x. Have fun being half as rich as me!

Amateur! True bitcoin maestros never sell for less than a 100x profit :P

Re: Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600

#80

Post by tudorconstantin »

watoc wrote: post #30

Futures on Bitcoins will be introduced next week on CBOE and the week after on CME. I wonder if we will still see this kind of crazy rallies as it will be easier to short it.

If one wants to short the CBOE/CME futures and also be hedged, he'd need to go long on spot price. That will only increase its price.
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