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

Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 121 posts

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#111

Post by CryptoPunk »

lucaspiller wrote: post #63
tom_mellior wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's too technical to be used casually In casual use with your mobile phone, you are shown a QR code, scan it, tap "OK", and it's done. Not that technical. Billions of people with smartphones could handle that perfectly. You're right about transactions being slow and expensive, and that is certainly a much bigger problem. That and the fact that there are still very few places accepting it.

> That and the fact that there are still very few places accepting it. This is one thing I don’t get. In countries like China and India (to name the two countries I know about) mobile payment apps are ubiquitous. You go in to a shop, scan a QR code, and boom your payment is done. This is what crytocurrencies promised, but instead more closed apps came to fill the market. What happened?

>>What happened?

Bitcoin Core betrayed the original vision of Bitcoin and hotwired it into a high-cost settlement system. The average transaction fee in Bitcoin is something like $38, which is more than the average weekly salary in many countries.

I believe that cryptocurrency will eventually attain mass adoption. The timeline has been pushed back a few years though because the main network has failed.

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#112

Post by naveen99 »

mutteraloo wrote: post #9

It could also go back to $100. Bitcoin has no mainstream use right now. It's too expensive to transact in terms of money and time, it's too volatile to be a store of value, it's too technical to be used casually, it's too fragile since it gets hacked every which way, and it's too easily copied to be rare.

> it could also go back to $100

Do some napkin math, this is impossible. The people who hold bitcoin now probably have a combined net worth of over a trillion dollars. They will pump and dump it forever rather than let it go to zero. It's way too much fun to trade alone.

> bitcoin has no mainstream use right now

Maybe not in india yet. Even there, it's only a matter of time. Someone will introduce gbtc to the NSE and BSE, and watch it get bought widely even in india. There is a reason it sells at a 20% premium in india.

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#113

Post by 0wing »

Zarath wrote: post #110
0wing wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every cryptocurrency followed Bitcoins scheme, wherein massive quantities of the supply were produced for the first few weeks to a small group of users, so any later users entering these systems must than buy from those horders or spend more and more capital on the increasingly expensive and reducing output of mining. It's not exactly a ponzi or pyramid scheme, but the manipulative intent is clear so a new ter…

Literally every investment is a "ponzi" or "pyramid" by your definition. If I invest in a company I can get a hell of a lot more shares for cheap now than when they IPO.

No.

This is specific to crypto currency supply production algorithms.

Coin supplies are created by running the software. Bitcoin and many other cryptocoins use a rule that lets the first users take control of the supply very easily by generating the coins for very low CPU/GPU difficulty. After a few weeks, the work required to produce more coins doubles. This just lets a few users control the supply, wait, and attempt to convince new users the coins are rare because the production/mining has become significantly more expensive.

tl;dr: early miners generate most of the coins inexpensively, and try to sell to greater fools because the software stops creating coins as easily as the first few days

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#115

Post by 659087 »

iwcmarkxviii wrote: post #35
vasilipupkin wrote: post #16

Yeah, this seems like weird erratic behavior. I mean if you are raising a big fund for bitcoin and you think it's going to drop, that's good for yoi because you can buy it cheaper. And if you are not a bitcoin bull, why raise a fund in the first place? Something is up with this guy

Actually not that erratic. he doesn't have enough stake in BTC or ETH to make massive market movements. he's wants to drive the price down to buy more and the only way is through his position of "influence." BTC will make a massive rebound in 2018. I'm sure a lot of BTC bulls have full knowledge of this possibility and are acquiring as many as possible.

> BTC will make a massive rebound in 2018

...

> I'm sure a lot of BTC bulls have full knowledge of this possibility

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#116

Post by 659087 »

banku_brougham wrote: post #94

I want to know what platform someone like him can use to transact $250MM out of Bitcoin into USD (in his personal trading acount he said, actually $250MM was the profit). As I understand, its not easy to convert to cash, especially in large volume.

I'm sure Bitfinex would happily give him some "USD"* for it, just as soon as they fire the printing press up again.

* Internet monopoly money

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#118

Post by kbwt »

naveen99 wrote: post #112
mutteraloo wrote: post #9

It could also go back to $100. Bitcoin has no mainstream use right now. It's too expensive to transact in terms of money and time, it's too volatile to be a store of value, it's too technical to be used casually, it's too fragile since it gets hacked every which way, and it's too easily copied to be rare.

> it could also go back to $100 Do some napkin math, this is impossible. The people who hold bitcoin now probably have a combined net worth of over a trillion dollars. They will pump and dump it forever rather than let it go to zero. It's way too much fun to trade alone. > bitcoin has no mainstream use right now Maybe not in india yet. Even there, it's only a matter of time. Someone will introduce gbtc to the NSE and…

> this is impossible.

I wouldn't be so sure.

> pump and dump it forever

That doesn't work.

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#119

Post by Goladus »

Zarath wrote: post #110
0wing wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every cryptocurrency followed Bitcoins scheme, wherein massive quantities of the supply were produced for the first few weeks to a small group of users, so any later users entering these systems must than buy from those horders or spend more and more capital on the increasingly expensive and reducing output of mining. It's not exactly a ponzi or pyramid scheme, but the manipulative intent is clear so a new ter…

Literally every investment is a "ponzi" or "pyramid" by your definition. If I invest in a company I can get a hell of a lot more shares for cheap now than when they IPO.

Shares are fractional ownership of a company that can grow or shrink. The whole point is that their value corresponds with the total value of the company.

It becomes a ponzi scheme when the only value from early shares comes from investment in later shares. That's what's happening with bitcoin.

Re: Novogratz Halts Hedge Fund, Says Bitcoin May Drop to $8,000

#120

Post by 0wing »

Goladus wrote: post #119
Zarath wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally every investment is a "ponzi" or "pyramid" by your definition. If I invest in a company I can get a hell of a lot more shares for cheap now than when they IPO.

Shares are fractional ownership of a company that can grow or shrink. The whole point is that their value corresponds with the total value of the company. It becomes a ponzi scheme when the only value from early shares comes from investment in later shares. That's what's happening with bitcoin.

It's also simply how the supply is produced.

Satoshi made a machine that prints money if you do work. He made it so it only required a small amount of work to begin with and as time goes on, someone else with the same machine and the same work gets less. It's made even worse because there were less users battling over the larger easy production near the start, and more and more users fighting over less and less output.

tl;dr it's even more malicious than a ponzi

Post reply on HN