Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#61

Post by verdverm » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #46

verdverm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private blockchain seems to be crossing the chasm at a much better place. Bitcoin has yet to offer something of value to the mass market. My money is pretty much digital already, and I'm not really down with my transactions being out in the public. Perhaps another crypto currency will meet the needs of the major market, though I have a hunch the current financial institutions will get there first.

I think Bitcoin would be a good fit for transferring value between large entities (governments, banks, etc.), where having public accountability would be especially valuable. Those entities could then exchange it with other lower-valued cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, precious metals, seashells, etc. more suitable for day-to-day consumption by the general public.

Would you have your transactions out in public view?

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#62

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:25 PM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #13

ascendantlogic wrote: post #2

As it has done multiple times previously. I anxiously await reading why this time is "different", just like all the previous times.

This is the first pop that I’ve felt is likely to be the last. A lot of people got burnt and are unwilling to jump back in.

So far Bitcoin investor behavior has been remarkably consistent.

https://plot.ly/~unchained/37/bitcoin-utxo-age-distribution/...

There's a lot to dissect in this chart, so take some time with it. Some observations:

* Most of the market is traded during bull runs. Each bull run sees a large segment of year+ holders take profits. Between bubbles, price-discovery is driven by short-term trading.

* Bear markets see remarkably little activity from holders. 'Hold waves' form between bubble cycles that clearly demonstrate that the majority of coins are held by 'firm hands' that bought in bull runs.

* Right now, a large segment of people that bought in the 2013 bull are starting to mature into the 5+ year bracket. A significant amount of coins are still being held in this way. It's remarkable to see it in real time. Neither the crash to $150 or the run to $20k motivated a large selloff.

* It took about 2 years after the 2017 bull for * Age distribution is becoming more bimodal: stubborn holders and large healthy active market.

* The current price crash is rather anomalous. An incredible 4% of coins in existence moved out of 3+ year bands very suddenly. This is among the 3 or 4 largest shifts, the others occurring in much different contexts. Given how sudden it was, and how specific the age band, I have my guess as to whether this is a cause or effect of the drop.

The main takeaway from this is that Bitcoin investors are remarkably willing to hold. "Hodl" is more than a meme, and the current crop seems about the same as previous ones in this regard, with a growing 'hold wave'.

I also think the last 'pop' was a lot worse due to the looming existential scaling threat. This has been addressed in an unoptimal way, but one that is remarkably true to Bitcoin and overall encouraging.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#63

Post by shuntress » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

The thing that really bothers me the most about crypto trading is all the wanna-be day-trader bros who fundamentally misunderstand what they are actually buying and selling.

"Open source distributed transaction ledger" sails right over their heads but if I said I hand out a new dirtcoin to whoever moves the most dirt around my yard each day and here are some exchanges carrying dirtcoin I'm met with an avalanche of Wall Street jargon about how dirtcoin is the best investment anyone can ever make.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#64

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

abstrct wrote: post #9

"Millennials, like generations before them, just got a painful lesson about speculation." and yet the first tweet is from McAfee... I know life has been hard to him but that is one very aged Millennial. Just add this bad article to the 300+ Bitcoin Obituaries, and the even more writings that try to point out the hard lesson learned by us idiot Millennials. A reminder that some Millennials are almost 40 now, we were t…

A weak defense of Bloomberg here: it was a bubble/pop, and this wasn't an obituary. They actually resisted calling it dead. The story was more about the dangerous of 'bubbly' assets, which is entirely legitimate. Obviously the millennial angle is dumb, but meh.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#65

Post by abstrct » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #64

abstrct wrote: post #9

"Millennials, like generations before them, just got a painful lesson about speculation." and yet the first tweet is from McAfee... I know life has been hard to him but that is one very aged Millennial. Just add this bad article to the 300+ Bitcoin Obituaries, and the even more writings that try to point out the hard lesson learned by us idiot Millennials. A reminder that some Millennials are almost 40 now, we were t…

A weak defense of Bloomberg here: it was a bubble/pop, and this wasn't an obituary. They actually resisted calling it dead. The story was more about the dangerous of 'bubbly' assets, which is entirely legitimate. Obviously the millennial angle is dumb, but meh.

Totally fair comment. The author does admit that they themselves are still holding, so an addition to the obituaries isn't accurate. I think the millennial part just frustrated me.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#66

Post by morgancmartin » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

tn_ wrote: post #26

morgancmartin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to make a friendly wager on whether it returns bigger than ever? My ten dollars says it will within, say, two years. What do you say?

This guy bitcoins.

Haha, thanks for the laugh.

Considering the downvotes I got, I suppose I was out of line suggesting a wager, but I've yet to see convincing evidence for why blockchain tech can't work. Sure it's overhyped way beyond what it deserves and it hasn't found its "killer app" or niche yet, but that doesn't mean it won't.

Nano's my favorite coin. It's fee-less, near-instant, and secure. Its largest flaw (and one all coins share at this point) is its tendency to fluctuate in value. But this problem is soon to be overcome by stable coins. Once that's done, its only remaining disadvantage will be lack of adoption. And if the product's right, I don't see any reason why a superior product won't gain market share given enough time. And it's not like crypto is under some investor enforced deadline to reach a certain market share, it's got all the time in the world.

Anyone care to point out any flaws in my thinking?

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#67

Post by cesarb » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

NathanCH wrote: post #25

I would love an analysis on who is moving the market today. In the last month there have been three occurrences where the price of BTC jumped 10% in a single moment (followed by equal sell-offs hours/days later). Stranger still, all coins seem highly correlated. BTC goes up, all coins go up. I realize this behavior is not new and the market has been highly correlated since the beginning, ...but why?

> Stranger still, all coins seem highly correlated. BTC goes up, all coins go up.

My current theory is that Bitcoin is the "reserve currency" of all these coins. That is, their price is better understood as being expressed in Bitcoins, not in USD or other currency.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#68

Post by abstrct » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

NathanCH wrote: post #25

I would love an analysis on who is moving the market today. In the last month there have been three occurrences where the price of BTC jumped 10% in a single moment (followed by equal sell-offs hours/days later). Stranger still, all coins seem highly correlated. BTC goes up, all coins go up. I realize this behavior is not new and the market has been highly correlated since the beginning, ...but why?

Most exchanges that have coins other than Bitcoin use Altcoin/Bitcoin pairs. So you're not trading in relation to the US Dollar, you're trading in relation to Bitcoin.

For a trader, that means that to them 1 ETH is currently worth 0.02678663 BTC. The USD price of Bitcoin doesn't come into play here. So, if Bitcoin goes down, the relation to ETH means that it follows, since 1 ETH is still worth 0.02678663 BTC.

Edit: Why would they do this? A number of reasons, the biggest two being habit and volume.

Most coins are traded on networks that don't have fiat currencies, so they had to choose a cryptocurrency base. Also, many traders in the realm started out with Bitcoin, and love Bitcoin, and want more Bitcoin. So they don't care if a trade gets them USD, they just want to grow their BTC holdings.

Finally, with trading, volume is very important - you want as much being offered for sale as possible. If you split up every order book (btc/eth, xrp/eth, ltc/eth, usd/eth, xrp/ltc, xrp/usd, ltc/btc, etc etc) then the volume of each 'book' is divided amongst the options, making it harder to move larger amounts from one to the other.

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#69

Post by ascendantlogic » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #51

ascendantlogic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people got burnt in the dotcom crash? In the financial crisis of 2007-2008? Black Monday of 1987? Did all of those people swear off investing in traditional equity instruments forever?

Why do you believe it is even remotely reasonable to compare "traditional equity instruments" with the perpetual scam that is cryptocurrencies? A comparison that's way more appropriate is tulips, but even so tulips aren't used as tokens in money laundering scams.

> used as tokens in money laundering scams.

As opposed to the US dollar which is constantly used in money laundering scams perpetuated by some of the biggest names in global finance?

Re: Bitcoin Was a Bubble and It Popped

#70

Post by vminkov » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

What we won't tell you is that many investors have realised that the price will fall freely if the supply can't be limited in demand drops. And they are now seeking to gain control over as much of the circulating supply as possible.