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

Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

bitcoincharts.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 600 posts

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#331

Post by dmm »

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…

Most businesses are started with savings and money borrowed from family. Most entrepreneurs would do just fine in a deflationary environment.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#332

Post by yxhuvud »

mikemoka wrote: post #70

How could the bitcoin exchange rate reverse its trend and start falling? Do you have any scenarios in mind?

I imagine it will look roughly like the last time it crashed:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/...

90% of the value were lost in a few months. The market seem even frothier this time so I'd expect the eventual pop the be harsher as well.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#333

Post by phaus »

aneth4 wrote: post #290
dragontamer wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is a piss poor investment. Owning Real Estate (and making money off of it) entails taking care of it. People taking care of their land (so that it can appreciate in value) is a good thing. The typical Real Estate "investor" adds a ton of value to their home, not just through maintenance, but also additions (ie: a new deck). This maintenance is true value added to the economy. True value that wouldn't have been a…

> Gold is a piss poor investment. Relative to what? The USD? http://pricedingold.com/us-dollar/ Real estate? http://pragcap.com/real-estate-gold-ratio-falls-to-30-year-l... Gold is an asset that holds its purchasing power pretty well. It is what it is. It is not however a "piss poor" investment.

The price of gold is so ridiculously inflated right now that it's insane to invest in it. For people back in 2000, it was a great idea, but now the price is high. The most basic rule of investing is buy low, sell high. It sounds like a stupid catch phrase, but even people like Warren Buffet have said that it's true.

You might be able to make a little bit of money, but unless the global economy collapses entirely, I doubt we'll see another major increase. Gold actually has gone down in value before, so it could easily happen again again.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#334

Post by genwin »

calinet6 wrote: post #195
andyakb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not rational thinking. Simply because something has gone up in the past does not mean it will continue to. The returns for the past 5 months have been insane, but that doesnt mean it was a good investment 5 months ago because thats based entirely on results oriented thinking. In a casino, if a roulette wheel hit black 10 times in a row, somebody letting it ride on black the whole way would have made a fortune…

> In a casino, if a roulette wheel hit black 10 times in a row, somebody letting it ride on black the whole way would have made a fortune, but that doesnt mean it would have been a good bet, it means the people making those bets got lucky. Equating a currency to a game of chance based on independent events—now that's irrational thinking. My conclusions might not be valid, this isn't something I'm an expert at, but I…

A better example is some stock that went up 10X in the last 5 months.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#335

Post by SilasX »

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,…

The actual problem that arose in the CH Babysitter Co-Op, supposedly solved by inflation, was that they didn't let scrip trade at actual relative value; you had to pay/accept one scrip unit per time unit whether the babysitting was for Wednesday or Saturday night.

This was compounded by a case of retardism on the part of its managers, who refused to accept that different nights have different value, and that prices have to change to achieve equilibrium. So the supposed solution of inflation was actually replacing one artificial problem (a price floor) with another (temporary misvaluation of the new currency due to "money illusion").

Go find out how Krugman answers the question of "Why didn't they just let the exchange rate of scrip per hour float freely in response to differential weeknight demand and risk aversion?" (Hint: he doesn't, anywhere.)

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#336

Post by numbsafari »

tlrobinson wrote: post #319
numbsafari wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course gold's value is inflated because of its dual role as a value store and as a commodity with practical applications. Even if gold loses favor as a value store, there will be some minimum boundary on its price based on its usefulness in practical applications. That is not true of bitcoin. The GP was implying that bitcoin has a commodity value, which it does not. It merely has value as a means of exchange. What…

So how much is gold's commodity value really? I've heard $30/oz thrown around (no idea how accurate that is). If that's true, 30/1600 is about 2%, yet gold is still perceived as a fairly safe store of value.

There's a lot of assumptions built in there... but it's besides the point: n% is infinitely better than 0% for any value of n > 0.

Also, the claim that "gold only became a currency when it was stamped" is wrong. The value of gold on the commodity markets today does include a value store component and none of it is stamped.

When the czar's family fled russia they didn't grab rubles, the grabbed jewels. Why? Because their currency was worth nothing but their jewels could be traded for value in a very transparent manner wherever they might end up.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#337

Post by tudorizer »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #165
Atropos wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "Cyprus people are getting into Bitcoin" narrative is a total lie as well. But I guess Bitcoin is a great learning opportunity for spotting Scams etc., as long as people don't lose too much money, it might even be beneficial.

I'm growing really bored of people who don't know what they're talking about calling Bitcoin a scam.

same here...

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#338

Post by DanBC »

cadetzero wrote: post #173
DanBC wrote: post #154

Some people lack the knowledge and skills needed to be able to buy something from Amazon. Compare buying something from Amazon with buying anything using Bitcoins - Amazon is ridiculously easy. Bitcoin will never reach that level of ease of use. But when it has something like a 5 step LiveCD[1] it might start to get wider use. [1] Something like insert CD, prepare anonymising stuff; load encrypted file from USB stick…

I'm not really sure why you say it's so hard. You install the bitcoin wallet. You sell something for bitcoins, and you give them your private key address in your wallet. You receive bitcoins. You buy something with bitcoins else where, and you just hit send and specify an address. Simple as an account # + routing number. Now funding your wallet with fiat currency is a little harder, but Coinbase has mostly taken care…

That's not anonymous. Anonymity is one of the benefits of bitcoin, but it's tricky to do.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#339

Post by aneth4 »

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #302
aneth4 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold is a piss poor investment. Relative to what? The USD? http://pricedingold.com/us-dollar/ Real estate? http://pragcap.com/real-estate-gold-ratio-falls-to-30-year-l... Gold is an asset that holds its purchasing power pretty well. It is what it is. It is not however a "piss poor" investment.

You know, comparing a commodity against a currency isn't very sensible. I don't know many (sensible) people who say "I'm just going to keep a load of dollar bills under my bed" when it comes to investing (which is what your first link compares to gold).

There is really little difference between a commodity and a currency other than how the supply is constrained. It is perfectly sensible to compare them.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#340

Post by Locke1689 »

adventured wrote: post #327
pg_bot wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflation increases the value of holding cash. By definition deflation occurs when the price of a basket of goods decreases. Why invest your money in a basket of goods today when it is going to be cheaper to buy that same basket tomorrow?

Nope, by definition deflation occurs when the authority controlling the money supply (eg the Fed) contracts said money supply. Prices going down is merely a symptom of deflation, but it is not deflation.

Only the Austrians use that definition and they're not a serious school of economics.
Post reply on HN