Just Wallstreet taking what is theirs...
Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
301–310 of 426 posts
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#302I do mobile software consulting. To give you an idea of the level of crypto currency mania: Every single one of my clients in San Francisco have some kind of slack or group chat devoted to crypto trading. I was waiting at the front desk of a client who has a floor in a fancy building downtown. Whilst waiting I overheard the end of a conversation between the door guy talking to the maintanence man: “I put in a bunch o…
This is a sell signal if I ever saw one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnj0UG9biLc It's been in the silly phase of bubble for a while now.
Overheard people in the train talking about that ponzi.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#303There's essentially nothing driving the price increase in 2017. Payment processing, remittance, asset-backing, digital identities, micropayments, bitcoin ATMs, VC-backed bitcoin startups, none of these things took off at all in 2017, in fact if anything the exciting years regarding these usecases/infrastructure ventures were 2013-2015. I bet if you ask 100 people why they bought and if they use bitcoin for anything i…
https://mobile.twitter.com/Bitfinexed This guy claims the increase in price is due to fake money being injected into market.
A lot of conspiracy theory type lingo in those tweet. Really reminds me of they type of stuff I'd see from Trump supporters or other crazies.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speak for yourself. We do. It took a while for 28.8K modems to catch up with bandwidth needs, and that's part of the reason people thought the internet sucked and was a joke compared to all its promises. I think even today people snort about pets.com as the poster child of the dot-com boom. Then their Amazon Pantry order arrives, which they consume without irony.
If your analogy is that Bitcoin is a 28.8k modem, then it seems to follow that something analogous to a 56k modem will come along and replace it?
Maybe. Or the modem is part of Bitcoin's infrastructure that needs to be replaced. Bitcoin's architecture is reasonably modular, so that is a possible outcome.
I can't read tea leaves better than anyone else, but I do agree with Hal Finney's Bitcoin-or-bust observation. If another cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin takes hold, it's likely that all cryptocurrencies will fail. This is because the scarcity argument proves false -- yes, any individual currency is perfectly scarce, but technological improvements in newer currencies will effectively inflate the entire ecosystem and devalue existing currencies.
That's the weak version of the prediction. The stronger version is that those already in the ecosystem (and thus who have an interest in preserving existing wealth) will see the weak version of the prediction, conclude it's undesirable, and try to prevent it from coming true. Thus they will integrate technological improvements into Bitcoin rather than supporting a separate chain.
The question is whether there is enough momentum already behind Bitcoin to support the strong version of the Finney theory. I think there is; Bitcoin supporters will eventually address its technological weaknesses, and future improvements in cryptocurrency will be implemented in terms of Bitcoin rather than by forking the ecosystem.
You might disagree, and maybe you're right. Maybe Bitcoin is just the modem. Maybe it's the internet. I'm betting it's the internet.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess, but unless you bought in past few weeks, you’re still way up. This is more likely a huge payday for those who held long and liquidated at year end.
You're still way up on paper . The payday comes when you actually liquidate your position, and you get the funds out of the exchange. Lot's of people were way up on Mt. Gox.
Yes, I assume the price drop is due to people selling off their positions, which is also known as “cashing out”. The “smart money” moves in at the bottom of the sell off, if you’re bullish on BTC.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#306Serious 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…
Yup. Nicely said.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
2nd amendment my friend. Note to criminals: don't try this in Arizona.
Good for him, your friend has every right to protect his life and property. We could rely on police, but all the police can be guaranteed to protect is his body after they show up 5 minutes too late.
I love protecting my life by shooting people. I don't think any society that didn't allow that could be considered free.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
The dollar is essentially backed by oil and the fact that it's needed to trade with the largest economy in the world, not to mention the country with the largest military.
Sure those things help give value to the dollar by increasing its demand. Whether of not this constitutes "backing" depends on the definition of backing. There is no underlying asset that directly backs the dollar, which is the whole point of fiat currencies. The fundamental source of demand is the requirement that US Taxes must be paid in dollars. The utility of using dollars to trade with the US economy is simply a…
If such a loose definition of "backing" is going to be used, then one could also say that bitcoin is "essentially backed" by its utility as a medium of exchange. That utility is a consequence of:
(1) the infaliabilty of its public ledger (which means it is especially useful where trust is low and where trust is needed).
(2) The ease of making a transaction.*
*Aside: since the bitcoin transaction volume currently exceeds the limits it was specifically designed to handle, that means that transactions currently either cost a lot of money or take a long time to be confirmed. But those are issues that could be resolved either with lightning network (or other off-chain solutions), side-chains, forks (soft and hard), or even by a whole new variation of the blockchain concept. Although bitcoin transactions admittedly currently aren't cheap or fast doesn't mean blockchain necessarily will always be like that.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#309Anyone know how Bitcoin plans to deal with this: https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions
I saw this posted on HN, I think earlier this week? And it was around 220k. Now it's 280k.
Re: Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed hard today
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess, but unless you bought in past few weeks, you’re still way up. This is more likely a huge payday for those who held long and liquidated at year end.
Hindsight will tell how much cynicism was warranted, but given the historic exponential volatility anybody who invested and liquidated at opportune moments were probably just lucky. Nothing wrong with taking risk, but dont pretend you're not gambling.
Considering that almost the entire time since the inception of BTC has been a “good time to buy”, and considering the price today is still twice or more what it was in September, I don’t really follow your logic. I don’t own any BTC, for the record.