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

Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 345 posts

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#141

Post by sathishmanohar »

simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

the simplest and most efficient scams of all time.

This maybe the simplest scam but I think the most efficient one is the one being pulled by the fed.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#142

Post by keymone »

simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

> if Bitfinex is lying about their dollar reserves this might be one of the simplest and most efficient scams of all time

i get what you're saying, but doesn't this mean that value of USDT is fake rather than value of BTC? in the end it's those that hold USDT will run to sell it either for USD or BTC, which would push BTC price even higher? now that would be ironic!

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#143

Post by jonknee »

conanbatt wrote: post #131
simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

The most interesting thought to me right now is how the situation will develop if or bitfinex/tether crashes the market hard. I am not a fan of the SEC getting involved. Taking crypto as an experiment, I think it is better for the market to take a hit and then find organic solutions. If the SEC gets involved and busts bitfinex/tether, the community loses the opportunity to become 'unbailable'. Yes , people will lose…

> but if you create the expectation that the sec will protect you as a consumer from the scams, then we will not be sophisticated to actually organically ignore scams.

Why have laws at all if you're unwilling to enforce them?

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#144

Post by JonnyNova »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #129
JonnyNova wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples to oranges, Bitcoin isn't cryptos as a whole. Future cryptos will absolutely succeed Bitcoin.

Their comment is based on historical facts, making it apples and oranges. Your speculation has no substance, but is 'absolutely' true? I'm not sure I follow that logic.

The apples to oranges is in reference to comparing Bitcoin to the AI's as a whole. AI as a whole survived the winter but a random implementation from 1985 did not. My comment was comparing Bitcoin as an implementation of a cryptocurrency to previous implementations of AI that have generated hype and then became either irrelevant or obsolete.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#145

Post by Leszek »

kelvin0 wrote: post #130

My question is: what is the value of a Bitcoin? It looks to me like a great way to transfer currency and facilitate exchange of goods, but not much more than that. So 'investing' in this digital currency itself does not make much sense to me, because intrinsically it has no 'real' value. I might be misinformed about the subject, in which case I would gladly like to be shown my error. For example, why don't I invest i…

What is the value of anything, really? The value of a metal brick, or a shiny stone, far exceeds any practical utility of the physical object itself. Even the value of a "real" currency is based, in broad strokes, on what you can exchange it for.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#146

Post by scardine »

api wrote: post #49
scardine wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Ethereum has any immunity from pump-and-dump and other market manipulation schemes compared to Bitcoin or your comment has nothing to do with the subject?

Of course not. One takeaway I have from both the 2008 crash and the cryptocurrency mania is that it's actually very hard to create a financial system that is not mostly fraud and gambling. There's a couple reasons for this. One is that people are greedy and I've even seen really honest people get weird around money. The second is that humans are extremely prone to falling for the alluring cognitive biases and fallaci…

This is too good for a simple comment. I would love to see these ideas expanded - do you write about this somewhere?

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#147

Post by Alex3917 »

simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

Keep in mind that Bitfinex can have the money and still be crooks. The feds probably care more about money laundering than they do about whether or not the money actually exists.

Even if all the money behind Tether is real, the end result for the markets may be the same.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#148

Post by elif »

conanbatt wrote: post #131
simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

The most interesting thought to me right now is how the situation will develop if or bitfinex/tether crashes the market hard. I am not a fan of the SEC getting involved. Taking crypto as an experiment, I think it is better for the market to take a hit and then find organic solutions. If the SEC gets involved and busts bitfinex/tether, the community loses the opportunity to become 'unbailable'. Yes , people will lose…

coinbase already FDIC insures USD holdings, and 3rd party insures crypto holdings.

risk variability is already organically controllable, and can be observed in the disparity of price movement between different exchanges (gdax is always lagged/dampened)

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#149

Post by sciyoshi »

simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

> They're literally making up money as they see fit.

I'm playing devil's advocate here (I agree that the whole Tether situation is concerning), but also genuinely curious - is this any different than what banks have been doing for forever with fractional reserve? Even if Bitfinex is overcommitted and there's more USDT in circulation than they have in USD reserves, is there a problem unless a lot of people try to convert at once?

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#150

Post by olodus »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37
epmaybe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you said is in jest, but did you read what you quoted? The individual in question worked at goldman sachs as an analyst/trader for maybe 3 years (AngelList), and hasn't worked there in at least two years.

Yeah, it's a bit of a trope like "worked at NASA" (atm over 17.000 people work at NASA). "Worked at" means nothing; show us some achievements.

I cleaned those NASA-toilets super clean, good sir, so I find no reason why you shouldn't trust me on my knowledge about aerodynamics!
Post reply on HN