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Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

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111–120 of 426 posts

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#111

As someone who owns and believes in cryptocurrency, I'm actually glad this happened. I was getting sick of all the get rich quick people who've been driving the price lately, even for the coins that shouldn't be pumping. It was almost as if the entire cryptocurrency space had turned into a huge unregulated casino. I was at a couple of Bitcoin meetups recently and was surprised to find that most attendees were proudly…

Just FYI and very anecdotal, I know a guy who was confronted in the parking lot after a bitcoin meetup by 2 guys demanding that he send some coins to their wallet. Be careful at those meetups.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is not many that bought for 15k will sell below that, so price will drop (as did few times before, when bitcoin experienced rapid appreciation) but it won't drop to the before-bubble price but slightly higher. It will either very gradually climb from there or stay steady for 3 years or so and then experience next crazy ride up. Then most of the guys who bought for 15k will sell. The point is, people buy b…

Funny how any pro-bitcoin comment immediately attracts downvotes. I'm considering posting opposite of what I think about bitcoin to get those sweet, sweet upvotes. :-)

If your implementation of "posting opposite" were to include evidence, analysis, or other than blind assertion, perhaps those upvotes would flow.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#113
post #74
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence the price should have went from $1k to almost $20k other than hysteria and fraud? If not, why buy?

To be fair, it probably will be pumped to $50k some time in the future (before crashing again). It's what Bitcoin does. After ten years, it's all it does. In 2011 (or something, I'm going by memory) it rose to $30 before crashing back to about $5. In 2013 (still the days when all people had to do was spam a few forums) it reached $10, $100, $200 before stagnating until MtGox and Willybot pumped it up to $1k. ISTR som…

I think this latest pump brought in a lot of Regular Joe speculators. Not sure if that can be repeated again, but I guess all those Regular Joes now have Coinbase accounts, so maybe.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't know what they were buying; bits in a database. A very poorly implemented database that was - not scalable - not rare - didn't have any government backing or big institutional backing in case the price dropped from 19,000 to 11,000 - easily hackable (tether, fake trades, scam exchanges, etc) - too expensive to do a single transaction this applies to most crytocurrency

> not rare Interesting. Don't really know how crytos work, but isn't rarity is guaranteed by the BitCoin algorithm itself?

Yes.

But anyone can create a blockchain exactly like that of Bitcoin and call it Bitcoin-B, Bitcoin-C etc, etc.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#115
post #111

As someone who owns and believes in cryptocurrency, I'm actually glad this happened. I was getting sick of all the get rich quick people who've been driving the price lately, even for the coins that shouldn't be pumping. It was almost as if the entire cryptocurrency space had turned into a huge unregulated casino. I was at a couple of Bitcoin meetups recently and was surprised to find that most attendees were proudly…

Just FYI and very anecdotal, I know a guy who was confronted in the parking lot after a bitcoin meetup by 2 guys demanding that he send some coins to their wallet. Be careful at those meetups.

Well, what did he do?

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#116

Ha! I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks internet. What I don't get, is how do these prices actually change? For btc or a stock. The mechanism seems very voodoo.

If the last traded price was 20k, then that's the price. If you have some btc and are looking to sell really quickly before it goes down, and I make a buy offer for 19k that you accept, then the last traded price is now 19k, and that's the new price. Nothing voodoo really, just a bunch of people making buy/sell decisions based on how they think the value will move.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#117

Serious question: who didn't expect this? Did anybody think that the 19K high of last week was going to be the new normal?

A lot of people? People continued to buy all the way up to 19.5. The thing about Bitcoin is, almost everyone expected a drop, no one knew when or how high it would go before it dropped... or how far it will drop.

Everyone also expected it to drop at 5k, 10, 15k and it just didn't happen to a large extent. I stupidly bought in at 10k and got lucky to make some money but others stupidly bought in at 20k.

The only thing definitive about Bitcoin is that it will go up..and down. Claiming to know how high, how fast, or how low is BS.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being bitter IMO. Sure, some people are mad they missed the boat, but I don't think that is the general consensus (at least here on HN). There's no valuable discussion to be had anymore regarding BTC because every discussion turns into price point speculation, FUD, or "I told you so" remarks. Bring some real discussion and critical thought the table, and not just repost the same WSJ articles that sensa…

> There's no valuable discussion to be had anymore regarding BTC because every discussion turns into price point speculation There are tangential discussions around market structure, regulations (their existence, interpretation and necessity) and other matters I've found genuinely interesting. Bitcoin appears to have attempted a clean reboot of modern finance. It's interesting seeing where common solutions are found.…

Let me clarify - I agree with you. Price discussion shouldn't be the only discussion, but the media frenzy and run away increase in value makes it the main topic of focus.

The things that you mentioned are what I am most interested around Bitcoin, and what should be talked about - but that is only happening in very small amounts and (in my experience) by people who don't have any horses in the race.

As a side note - I would add that Bitcoin in theory attempted to reboot modern finance. The idea, passion, maybe even necessity is there - but I don't think the tech is there yet. Clearly people are more interested in generating value based on our current monetary system vs. pushing for widespread Bitcoin adoption.

Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today

#120

Ha! I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks internet. What I don't get, is how do these prices actually change? For btc or a stock. The mechanism seems very voodoo.

Market manipulation. The prices are really set by the coin exchanges; what they are willing to take/pay. They're all really competing with each other on the best prices for BTC. All of this becomes a feedback loop.

A lot of people I talked to really believed prices were being driven by some kind of market manipulation. Either within the coin exchanges or people who were finding a way to manipulate things on the blockchain.

There was this post not too long ago about how someone might be stealing coins using well known keys:

https://pastebin.com/jCDFcESz

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