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

Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 830 posts

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#171

Post by abiogenesis »

TeeWEE wrote: post #73

Bitcoin itself has its value, but the current price surge is a bubble, it can be easily explained why the growth is exponential: 1. BTC price increases 4. There is media attention about the price raise 5. More people buy BTC, because FOMO 6. Back to point 1, but now a bigger group This loop is a pump, increasing the price as long as the loop isn't broken. The same pump can reverse, very quickly. Once the loop is pump…

The "price" of two coins in terms of fiat currency is not comparable. It depends on the total supply. The current total supply of ETH is ~120M vs BTC's 21M. If ETH was limited to, say, a total supply of 1000 coins the price would be astronomical.

Also ETH doesn't have an upper limit to the total supply, therefore its scarcity is not the same as BTC.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#172

Post by brighton36 »

sethammons wrote: post #147
superbcarrot wrote: post #28

Does anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?

Haha, yes. In 2011, a guy on my team was all about bitcoin and dogecoin and such. I think bitcoin was like 11 cents a coin, or maybe a dollar by that point. I just plain didn't get it. Still barely do. I could have easily picked up a few hundred dollars of coin or, if I was a believer, a grand or two. Had I held onto it, I would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. However, if I got in at 10 cents, I would have…

Bitcoin is the most complicated idea known to man: number go up.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#173

Post by coinward »

bobm_kite9 wrote: post #148

What about the 51% attack problem? Why doesn’t this matter? Can someone explain how this currency is a good bet when there is this seemly huge gaping hole in the system. Honest question!

If you have enough hash power to 51% attack Bitcoin at all, your potential for rewards by instead mining honestly are significantly higher, at least that's how the game theory generally plays out

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#174

Post by ketamine__ »

kungito wrote: post #62
seibelj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both nocoiners and coiners are locked into their positions so hard it’s “I’ll go down with the ship” at this point. At least one side gets to be rich though!

There is also my generation where we have only recently started earning money and thinking about these things, desperately leveraging FOMO and all the other factors, trying to enter the market a bit too late but still before the next crash, wondering whether we are already too late. You could say crypto is similar to GME, but with GME anyone knowledgeable could see that it's a pump and dump because the 300$ only made…

It's never late to enter the market. It seems like a lot of people aren't happy investing in tech companies and doubling their money over the next 5-10 years. They want to take big risks and double their money now!

Being impatient will likely kill your returns in the long-term. The interviews with Charlie Munger videos on YT are really good if you're interested in a sensible approach to investing.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#175

Post by kvee »

anm89 wrote: post #150
sethammons wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, yes. In 2011, a guy on my team was all about bitcoin and dogecoin and such. I think bitcoin was like 11 cents a coin, or maybe a dollar by that point. I just plain didn't get it. Still barely do. I could have easily picked up a few hundred dollars of coin or, if I was a believer, a grand or two. Had I held onto it, I would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. However, if I got in at 10 cents, I would have…

doge coin did not exist in 2011.

I read his original statement with the "and such" to mean that he isn't specifically referring to dogecoin, but just things like it.

Which gets him off the hook for it not existing back then.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#176

Post by coinward »

ben_w wrote: post #170
coinward wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The valid reason is that Bitcoin is the best money that has ever emerged in human history. The denationalization of money is inevitable and long predicted. Check out Nobel prize winning economist Hayek's Denationalization of Money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denationalization_of_Money

From your link: “Stability in value is presumed to be the decisive factor for acceptance. Hayek makes the assumption that competition will favor currencies with the greatest stability in value since a devalued currency hurts creditors, and an upward-revalued currency hurts debtors.” Stability is not the observed behaviour in BTC.

if you use BTC as unit of account then Bitcoin is the only thing that IS stable!

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#177

Post by globular-toast »

georgyo wrote: post #80
superbcarrot wrote: post #28

Does anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?

A long long time ago, I mined 3650 coins on a single cpu in a month. Bitcoin was worthless at the time, and I thought the idea was interesting. After a month, I went back to folding at home. A little over a year later bitcoin hit a dollar and I sold it all. On one hand I made a few thousand from nothing. However if I held it I would have been a pretty rich right now. I truly believe that bitcoin is something that can…

I feel similar. I bought 1 BTC when they cost tens of pounds because I was interested in it. I spent about 0.2 BTC, some on goods and some I donated to charitable causes. I sold the rest when it was ten thousand. I also tried to buy a second BTC but lost my money on an exchange.

I still believe, as I did then, that Bitcoin is worthless because it's not scalable. I do think if someone can solve the scalability issues then decentralised currency is extremely valuable. But I've tried investing in those and they've all tanked. Crypto is entirely driven by speculation. There is very little real value.

But yeah, it sucks a bit to think if I would've waited until now I'd actually have what amounts to a life-changing amount to me. I just remind myself that I'm rich anyway. I have a warm house, enough food to make me fat, a home cinema, loads of computers and a fast car. So why would I lose sleep over it?

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#178

Post by abiogenesis »

doggosphere wrote: post #129
exabrial wrote: post #125

Pretty hard to take "green" companies seriously when they're promoting the environmental disaster that is Bitcoin. At some point, someone needs to step in and say "no more mining".

73% of mining is renewable energy https://pd.coinshares.com/EN-Mining-Whitepaper-December-2019

Still we could have used the same energy for other things that are currently running on non-renewable energy.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#179

Post by RestlessMind »

ben_w wrote: post #170
coinward wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The valid reason is that Bitcoin is the best money that has ever emerged in human history. The denationalization of money is inevitable and long predicted. Check out Nobel prize winning economist Hayek's Denationalization of Money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denationalization_of_Money

From your link: “Stability in value is presumed to be the decisive factor for acceptance. Hayek makes the assumption that competition will favor currencies with the greatest stability in value since a devalued currency hurts creditors, and an upward-revalued currency hurts debtors.” Stability is not the observed behaviour in BTC.

It is rather a promise of an "eventual stability". Thinking through that lens, I think USD (and other Fiat currencies) are the ones exhibiting instability.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#180

Post by SilverRed »

sethammons wrote: post #147
superbcarrot wrote: post #28

Does anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?

Haha, yes. In 2011, a guy on my team was all about bitcoin and dogecoin and such. I think bitcoin was like 11 cents a coin, or maybe a dollar by that point. I just plain didn't get it. Still barely do. I could have easily picked up a few hundred dollars of coin or, if I was a believer, a grand or two. Had I held onto it, I would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. However, if I got in at 10 cents, I would have…

The last point is the big one. Almost no one would have carried on through the last 3 bitcoin bubbles if they did buy at the start.
Post reply on HN