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Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

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Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#241

Post by polarix »

tvladeck wrote: post #236

Currencies have existed in a huge variety of forms over time. Basically anything can work as a medium of exchange as long as everyone has a high degree of confidence that if they are paid in the currency, that they too can pay someone else in that currency. But that's not to say all currency regimes are created equally -- we've learned a number of lessons, painfully, about how to manage currencies. For a small-scale,…

It's close to a new gold standard.

The one problem associated with gold that it does solve is being as good a medium of exchange as visa/paypal (or better).

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#242

Post by nawitus »

TillE wrote: post #138
dragontamer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new domain name has been 10 USD from Namecheap for the last decade. A new domain name in BTC however, has varied between 1 BTC and 0.1 BTC in just the past two months. BTC as a proxy for USD is still useful IMO, it gives us a way to avoid Paypal and other online processors. But for it to be a USD replacement, it needs to first settle down and stabilize.

> it gives us a way to avoid Paypal and other online processors How do you buy and cash out your BTC? You still have to make all those real money transactions, just with the exchange rather than directly with the merchant. Seems a bit pointless to me.

You can also earn bitcoins, which will become more prevalentover time.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#243

Post by wmf »

dragontamer wrote: post #200
TillE wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it gives us a way to avoid Paypal and other online processors How do you buy and cash out your BTC? You still have to make all those real money transactions, just with the exchange rather than directly with the merchant. Seems a bit pointless to me.

Touche. Although, a BTC exchange + BTC merchant together have to only beat out on Paypal's charges. BTC seems to be stable enough that Paypal's 2.9% charge per transaction makes BTC a useful competitor. That said, now you have to trust both the BTC exchange and Merchant. But that is a bit easier if you can put up with the downsides to BTC (no chargebacks, etc. etc.)

In a common scenario where the customer pays 1% to Coinbase and the merchant pays 2.6% to BitPay, Bitcoin comes out worse than Paypal or credit cards.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#244

Post by api »

randallsquared wrote: post #232
deelowe wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few replies here that seem to be reacting negatively to the OP due to the tone of the submission instead of the content. To be clear, deflation is categorically bad for a currency. It's terrible, like great depression terrible. The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. When this happens, people react by not spending money. The market dies. While inflation…

> The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. This makes no sense to me. If keeping 100 units makes one richer because they are worth more in a year, then any investment which has a positive return (that is, you end up with more than 100 units in a year) must be that much better... What am I missing?

Risk.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#245

Post by julespitt »

dobbsbob wrote: post #234
dia80 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cryptobarons it will have created from its inner circle, through shameless hoarding. This isn't 1941 England and bitcoins aren't sugar. Early adopters in the right thing often make money. Usually on HN they are called investors and congratulated. Sour grapes on missing out? (I did too)

I bought 30,000 bitcoins when they were worth less than a penny and sold them all when the value went up to $0.80. Lol, oops. If you don't want to miss out again, buy Litecoins and Namecoins. Litecoin will never be worth as much as BTC (because there will be 80million of them as opposed to 20something million BTC) but it will slowly gain in value as it has some impressive features especially suited for online gaming…

You are assuming that the demand for any cryptocurrency responds linearly to the completely arbitrary total "quantity" assigned: Litecoin can't be worth more than Bitcoin because there are more units of them. That's simply not true.

I am a fan of cryptocurrency in principle, but not of this particular oversimplification that was borrowed from some very sloppy thinking on the part of gold enthusiasts.

Limited supply does not reliably ensure certain price behavior independent of demand.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#246

Post by drcode »

seanalltogether wrote: post #230
drcode wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly, since new land isn't being created anymore, everyone is going to shamelessly hoard real estate. Why would anyone ever buy or sell a house anymore? REAL ESTATE IS ALL A BIG DEFLATIONARY SCAM- You heard it here first.

Actually in the UK this is exactly what has happened since nobody pays property taxes over there. My fiancee owns her house but still pays rent to a land lord. When there are no liabilities for holding an asset, there's not a big incentive to sell it.

Not sure what you mean, since someone who owns a house doesn't have a land lord.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#247

Post by teebs »

deelowe wrote: post #218
lolcraft wrote: post #176

Some people here seem to think that this is temporary, that sometime in the future Bitcoin will stabilize into a glorious future global currency -- never mind the new class of cryptobarons it will have created from its inner circle, through shameless hoarding. My question is, what then will happen when Bitcoin stabilizes, that is, when the time to new coin mined approaches practically infinity? Let's assume the globa…

There are a few replies here that seem to be reacting negatively to the OP due to the tone of the submission instead of the content. To be clear, deflation is categorically bad for a currency. It's terrible, like great depression terrible. The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. When this happens, people react by not spending money. The market dies. While inflation…

This is part of the issue. The other part is that no one has any incentive to spend money, which can cause a recession. You can either 100 units of something today, or buy 110 units of it tomorrow. This gives you a very strong incentive to wait and not spend money. This means that no one buys anything, so no one needs to make or manufacture anything. People lose their jobs, so they don't have money, so they can't buy things... and so on.

Of course, inflation can be very bad, too.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#248

Post by T-hawk »

randallsquared wrote: post #232
deelowe wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few replies here that seem to be reacting negatively to the OP due to the tone of the submission instead of the content. To be clear, deflation is categorically bad for a currency. It's terrible, like great depression terrible. The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. When this happens, people react by not spending money. The market dies. While inflation…

> The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. This makes no sense to me. If keeping 100 units makes one richer because they are worth more in a year, then any investment which has a positive return (that is, you end up with more than 100 units in a year) must be that much better... What am I missing?

Those investments may not exist. Investments can yield a positive return only if somebody else spends money. But what if every potential customer also sits on their money to exploit the deflation instead of spending any?

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#249

Post by shazow »

NegativeK wrote: post #199
TranceMan wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to - Borrow $x bit coins - sell $x bit coins - wait for price to drop - buy back $x bit coins - return $x bit coins to lender. Now the speculators are in........

Do you know of any places that make loans in Bitcoin?

I know some people use https://btcjam.com/

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#250

Post by walkon »

deelowe wrote: post #218
lolcraft wrote: post #176

Some people here seem to think that this is temporary, that sometime in the future Bitcoin will stabilize into a glorious future global currency -- never mind the new class of cryptobarons it will have created from its inner circle, through shameless hoarding. My question is, what then will happen when Bitcoin stabilizes, that is, when the time to new coin mined approaches practically infinity? Let's assume the globa…

There are a few replies here that seem to be reacting negatively to the OP due to the tone of the submission instead of the content. To be clear, deflation is categorically bad for a currency. It's terrible, like great depression terrible. The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. When this happens, people react by not spending money. The market dies. While inflation…

> The reason it's bad is that deflation makes it more profitable to do nothing than to invest. When this happens, people react by not spending money. The market dies.

If this is holds true, why do people buy from markets where prices regularly decrease? Wouldn't it follow that they will wait in perpetuity and never buy that new phone/laptop/etc?

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