Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#331

Post by skgoa » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 12:41 PM UTC

jgh wrote: post #109

komali2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love bitcoin and cryptocurrency as potential solutions to problems with gov-controlled currencies (I've used crypto to buy drugs, for example). But I'm still confused why people refer to purchasing currency as an "investment." Obviously the rates are going up now, but doesn't everyone expect them to just come back down? I don't convert my USD to Yen and call it an "investment."

Some people do though (forex traders), but that is not the primary use-case

No honest forex trader would call his trading an investment, though. They/we know exactly that it's just gambling based on very limited data. Also, traders are extremely careful to limit their risk. No sane trader would hold bitcoin for extend lengths of time. Yet hodling is exactly what bitcoin "investors" advocate.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#332

Post by skgoa » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 12:48 PM UTC

dudus wrote: post #158

ErikAugust wrote: post #111

The whole Tethers thing scares me the most: https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/953398351889944576 There's $5B worth.

Holy Shit, are they just trying to print out tethers out of thin air right now to pump Bitcoin? And it seems to be working, at least for now. This can't end up well.

Not to pump bitcoin but to sell tethers. They sell tethers to people who want to trade the tether/bitcoin currency pair on their exchange. But there is no way to turn tethers back into fiat currency. So they are just keeping all of the money that people "invest" in tether.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#333

Post by puranjay » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #246

joering2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like with dot com burst, it doesnt mean someone will turn the lights off forever. Just like the internet eventually got mainstream and websites are being bought and sold for billions these days, same way BitCoin will never be at 0,001 cent with nobody touch it with a long stick.

Sure, if you cherry pick. What ever happened to the supposed value of "hot" domain names? Right, we got search, and got used to typing in weird strings, and stopped caring about owning car.com or whatever.

I'm still kicking myself for getting out of the domain market in 2008. The aftermarket prices crashed following the recession.

I remember at one point, I bought out all the remaining 5 number .com names (like 78542.com). Must have been close to 400.

I let them all expire since they were worthless a year later.

Fast forward to 2015 and they're all selling for a minimum of $200+.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#334

Post by wslh » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #284

wslh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the concentration, there are a lot of millionaries out there. Much more than 1k. I always tell that I know more crypto-millionaries than startup ones.

Paper crypto "millionaires" or actual cold, hard, federal reserve-backed fiat Millionaires? That being said, scammers, shysters and pumpers always say bombastic shit like you are saying. That is how they get all the rubes to buy into their scam.

Speak with respect: sXXt is not in my vocabulary.

Beyond the scammers there is a lot of hard computer science research happenning.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#335

Post by jmkni » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #325

jmkni wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can somebody ELI5 this?

Bitfinex is a company that produces a cryptocurrency called Tether. Tether is in terms of the tech just like any other cryptocurrency; the big difference is that Bitfinex has pegged its value to the US dollar. This is great in theory, because transactions between two types of cryptocurrencies are (relatively) easy and cheap, and with one coin pegged to a real currency, it means the crypto ecosystem is much more liqui…

Thanks!

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#336

Post by celticninja » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

jstarfish wrote: post #281

celticninja wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a bankruptcy that was for personal debt such as credit cards surely your house as an asset can be sold in the event of a bankruptcy?

Not if it's your primary residence. Your summer home or a rental property, sure.

Where is this? In the UK and from what I could see in the US it would be included.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#337

Post by DennisP » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #303

DennisP wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're claiming that if Bitcoin did $1 trillion dollars worth of transactions in a year, and people held it for a year on average, that wouldn't necessarily imply a total value for all bitcoins of $1 trillion?

The total value of all bitcoins could still be $10 trillion or $100 billion.

I'm curious how you think that could actually happen. If the value is $100 billion and it changes hands once per year, then that's $100 billion that changed hands, and the GDP is $100 billion. If it changed hands twice, that's a GDP of $200 billion.

Note that I'm not making a price prediction; I'm just saying that if the price is low, and the velocity isn't unrealistically high, then that necessarily means that Bitcoin is playing a minor role in the economy because it trivially implies a low aggregate value of transactions.

Conversely if the price is high, Bitcoin still might be playing a minor role, if the average velocity is very low because lots of people are holding coins for a long time. But for Bitcoin to play a major role in the economy, it would need either a high price or a high velocity, so the aggregate value of transactions is a major portion of GDP.

A really high velocity would require fast and extremely cheap conversions with fiat, so you can hold fiat and convert to/from bitcoin at transaction time.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#338

Post by fuzzyfroghunter » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #83

Insanity wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think that might be explained due to the popularity of cryptocurrencies amongst an audience that is otherwise not economically inclined. They end up spending some money on bitcoin due to "hearsay" or what they read in the news, and think they can quickly make a lot of money. Without an understanding of how much can actually be lost. So when this happens, they might not think in percentages but in "how much di…

This is actually one reason for Accredited investor certification. When you read posts about people saying they can't afford rent now because of the down swing, it's a very tricky situation and one that could / should have been prevented. It's as if the financials industry had to go through these same issues to get where it is now.

I wonder, how much of the accredited investor certification is also about protecting wealthier investors from the kind of volatility/irrationality we are seeing in cryptocurrency prices stemming from fresh and unseasoned investors?

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#339

Post by aws_ls » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

vadansky wrote: post #98

I bought $200 worth of bitcoin years ago that I cashed out at 7k when it was around 19k$. Now I'm thinking I should cash back in incase it rebounds strongly again. I guess I should be happy with my free money and not get greedy.

Almost same story, but I didn't sell. Just moved around in ETH and BCH. Will never sell, unless it reaches like 100k USD worth or something. Its an experiment for me, out of interest/belief in technology. Personally not affected by this fall, but feel sad, on reading stories e.g. I'd heard of BitConnect, but never bothered about it until today. What an obvious scam.

I think this thing is like dot-com crash. And obvious ones have fallen. But some should survive. I am glancing through all the sub reddits, and I like the behavior on /r/ethereum the best. Nonplussed (largely) and just focusing on the tech. /r/bitcoin is the worst, but bitcoin has the most solid people (cause early adopters etc).

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#340

Post by ozim » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

fredoliveira wrote: post #181

bargl wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy $200 again and you haven't lost anything :-)

Considering the profits he can buy $6,800 — not $200 — and be even.

Nope, because $6800 are actual money that he can lose now.

Just like you go to casino with $5 play all night up to $2 million, then lose all go back home and tell your wife you only lost $5 so it was not that bad.