Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

davidgerard.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 271 posts

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#181

Post by lagadu »

Gys wrote: post #171
runeks wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. Are we sure about this? The two largest USD-exchanges are Coinbase/GDAX and Bitstamp, which operate out of California and London, respectively. If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be…

> If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? Based on what ? Because some people might think that is immoral ? Trading in most things is not regulated. So there is no law to be broken, expect very basic ones (you have to deliver if you receive fiat money). If I have a trading platform in art, then I can sti…

The difference is that GDAX is part of Coinbase, which is registered as a regular exchange under the New York DFS which puts them under the same regulations as non-crytop exchanges.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#182

Post by lagadu »

mitchellberry wrote: post #168
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They merely moved their business to other exchanges" The price crashed from like $1200 to $200 and it took years for it to recover. All those Moms and Dads and Grandmas who bought $10,000 of Bitcoin after Thanksgiving dinner hoping it would turn into $100,000 within a month will certainly get hit if the price falls to $1600 and doesn't recover for 3 years. All it takes is a change in the media narrative that scares…

> All it takes is a change in the media narrative. Every article I read in the media has huge negative sentiment already. Can you point to some positive articles about bitcoin? Seems to be very few going around, it's all bubbles, energy consumption, hackers, ransomware and terror funding. Wondering how the narrative can change for the worse from here.

The nearly weekly articles about btc hitting all-time high milestones would count as the positive articles about bitcoin in my opinion.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#183

Post by lagadu »

madaxe_again wrote: post #158
josephagoss wrote: post #102

You can cash out Bitcoin and the price is actually very accurate. The money I see in my bank account is real I can assure you of that. Also I know friends that cash out six figures at a time and the price they get is within less than 1% difference to the last sell price. The number is accurate enough for most orders under $10,000,000. Has this person actually traded Bitcoin? You might not be able to sell a large orde…

If cashing out is easy and reliable, why can’t I withdraw from Coinbase, six months after verifying my bank account? I’ll tell you: they don’t have the capital to pay anyone, so nobody can withdraw. It’s Mt Gox all over again.

I withdraw every month, usually in about ~1200€ worth: if you're having trouble with that you should contact coinbase support.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#184

Post by notyourday »

sah2ed wrote: post #135
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point he’s making is that everybody could not cash out at the listed price at once if something were to happen that made holding bitcoin undesirable (such as say, a possible crack for their elliptic curve crypto implementation). However, the same is true for banks which only keep 10% of deposits. Bank deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000 though.

> if something were to happen that made holding bitcoin undesirable (such as say, a possible crack for their elliptic curve crypto implementation). A much more realistic scenario that could make bitcoin undesirable to hold would be something like all major central banks collectively viewing bitcoin as a threat then working in concert to target the weakest link of the cryptocurrency: exchanges that facilitate conversi…

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Bitcoin is sea shell currency trading market pretending to be a currency.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#185

Post by notyourday »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #155
sah2ed wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MtGox was a major exchange and it went down but it didn't deter people from investing in bitcoins, they merely moved their business to other exchanges. Your original comment talked about a scenario where people decide against bitcoin and such a scenario can only play out if there is too much uncertainty to make them a viable investment. Because bitcoin is decentralized, the only way major governments can try to influ…

A scenario where the government makes crypto currencies completely impossible is unlikely, as that would mean that you essentially controlled all communication. There are many ways they can make it difficult, cumbersome and risky however, even on an individual basis. That could lead to a short term dampening effect on the global price until people figure out effective ways to get around the regulation in question.

No, the scenario is that the governments tell banks:

"Deal with BTC and lose your license. Kay, bye!"

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#186

Post by wheelerwj »

ufo wrote: post #175
healsjnr1 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing in particular I dislike about this is that the author lumps all crypto currency into the same bucket. As the prime example of this, ethereum and Bitcoin could not be more different. Work done by groups such as 0x mean that these regulations can be enforced by public contacts. Sure, there is more work to be done, but the potential is to create decentralised exchanges that are safer and easier to regulate tha…

Public contracts can't regulate USD trading though.

yes they can. written properly and with the right data, a smart contract can be very effective.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#187

Post by wegschmeiss »

sytelus wrote: post #122
josephagoss wrote: post #102

You can cash out Bitcoin and the price is actually very accurate. The money I see in my bank account is real I can assure you of that. Also I know friends that cash out six figures at a time and the price they get is within less than 1% difference to the last sell price. The number is accurate enough for most orders under $10,000,000. Has this person actually traded Bitcoin? You might not be able to sell a large orde…

Article author actually makes a great point and it stands regardless of your ability to cash out within 1%. Big investors on current markets can whip out huge profits for themselves by using techniques such as front running, wash trades, willybot, spoofing etc. Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. If you are…

> Until then, party on

Indeed. Earlier this year, mid-summer, I got curious about all this, so I decided to start an experiment, uploaded $100 to an exchange and started trading and programming against their API. Today, I am running fully automated bots which are winning, got about $25k in exchanges and cashed out about $15 to my bank account (no problem cashing out btw). That's 40000% in 6 month.

So all of this is absolutely crazy. I don't believe this can go on forever. But until then, yes, party on.

(I am using a throwaway for this - not being any careful, moderators should be able to easily track my other account if they want. I just don't want to associate my other account with this post.)

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#188

Post by twelve40 »

Cakez0r wrote: post #179
arcticfox wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the stock market - in general - has ridiculously profitable and powerful entities behind it. No matter what happens to investor confidence, ownership of Apple is going to be very valuable because they generate a ridiculous amount of profit. Cryptos, on the other hand, are entirely based on investor confidence.

It's not a given that Apple will continue to generate insane profit. Apple will remain very valuable because it has tangible assets that can be sold (book value). So with a total lack of investor confidence, the price floor of Apple shares should be book value - debts. Cryptocurrencies aren't backed by tangible assets, so the price floor is 0.

I'm not sure a neat definition of a price floor always holds in practice. Wasn't Yahoo at some point valued less than their tangible assets/stake in Alibaba?

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#189

Post by empath75 »

syllogism wrote: post #92
anonu wrote: post #77

From the article: “Market cap” [...] is a bogus number that’s not actually applicable to anything — it’s not money that was put into the crypto, it’s not a realisable value like a company market cap. I am not sure what the author means by "realizable". If their intention is to say, "Ok, let's liquidate every single coin for fiat currency... and we expect to have the market-cap equivalent in that currency" Well, whats…

What would you pay to own every single bitcoin? The answer should be nothing --- if you owned all of them, they'd be completely worthless. What would someone pay for all of Apple's stock? Suffice to say, a lot --- because Apple has actual value.

I think there’s actually a real risk in bitcoin of a few people controlling all of the wealth which makes it a not very fun game to play for anyone else, and makes it hard to justify it as a payments platform.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#190

Post by lawlessone »

Gys wrote: post #171
runeks wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. Are we sure about this? The two largest USD-exchanges are Coinbase/GDAX and Bitstamp, which operate out of California and London, respectively. If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be…

> If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? Based on what ? Because some people might think that is immoral ? Trading in most things is not regulated. So there is no law to be broken, expect very basic ones (you have to deliver if you receive fiat money). If I have a trading platform in art, then I can sti…

>Because some people might think that is immoral ?

No because they're actually laws and you can go to jail.

Post reply on HN