Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

A comparison that's way more appropriate is tulips, but even so tulips aren't used as tokens in money laundering scams.

Because it is designed to be deflationary?

Because its (energy cost) overhead is still sky high and likely to remain reflected in prices?

Because it is the "brand name" market with whatever caché remains to that name reflecting in prices?

Because sunk costs of existing investors want to keep the price high for as long as possible?

Those are just a few of the more obvious reasons. Not that I think it's any one thing here, it's probably some admixture of the above and other reasons.

When it hits a market cap of $334 billion, it becomes something more real. That is when Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger take a look at it and declare it something to avoid "like the plague" (Munger called Bitcoin "rat poison"). The greater market looks at it and it drops 80%.

Bitcoins are completely worthless. They have no value whatsoever. So the entirety of its current supposed market value of $61 billion (which was supposedly $334 billion a year ago), is closer to $0 than $61 billion.

Many overpriced dot-com stocks in 2000 or over-priced real estate in 2008 are still things which have value, even if the price went down for a while. Bitcoins have no value. I said so when the market cap was supposedly $240 billion ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15986475 ), I say so now, when the market cap is supposedly $61 billion, and I will say so until its graph starts hitting the $0 limit.

People say "it's valuable because it can be traded electronically", which is meaningless. Dot-com stocks could be traded electronically in 1999. The important thing is the value underlying what is traded. Bitcoin has none.

Still, I agree with vkou:

> Ransomware authors, heroin dealers and money launderers don't care how much BTC is worth - they only use it to cash out into USD. For them, the spot price is largely irrelevant.

That is, they'll still want to use Bitcoin, just not necessarily care about the spot price. The price is, I believe, driven up by gamblers.

Let's also make sure we understand that the S&P500 (or any stock ownership) is owning _business(es)_. Businesses make money, and they return that money to their owners. Bitcoin is purely speculative and depends on someone else buying it from you, presumably for more than you bought it for. Good luck finding another batch of suckers to fall for this after that last round.