Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#341

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

jamoes wrote: post #293

smsm42 wrote: post #238

It looks like a classic bubble now - while slow gains programmed in could be justifiable, this seems to be driven purely by expectations of future price rises - which is a classic bubble sign. So far, all bubbles popped sooner or later. Maybe this would be the only one in history that doesn't - I wouldn't bet on that, but maybe someone would and become a millionaire. Or lose all his money.

From 2003 to 2013, the price of AAPL rose from $11/share to over $400/share. Rapid price increase doesn't always mean "bubble". Sometimes innovative things are created.

There's nothing that happened with BTC between when it cost $14 and now. Comparing it to the shares of Apple that created a whole new consumer industry and substantially changed the information interactions of the whole humankind betrays deep misunderstanding of the question at hand. Bitcoins did not suddenly turned into new way of living, did not produce hundreds of amazingly useful things and did not change how many people do things. They just cost more, because people expect them to cost even more in the future.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#342

Post by wmf » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #321

wmf wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Bitcoin's monetary supply is totally disconnected from economic activity, I wonder how it can ever stabilize (except perhaps by accident).

Isn't the point of bitcoin that its monetary supply is disconnected from economic activity? I thought the "mining" is supposed to be analogous to actual gold mining, so that increases in supply happen very slowly, get more difficult over time, and eventually cease completely. Obviously, many (perhaps most) people think that centralized government currencies (where the government can essentially increase the money sup…

Some people think the point of Bitcoin is decentralized detection of double spending and consider the deflationary goldbug mentality a flaw. One could imagine a decentralized inflationary cryptocurrency that uses a closed-loop algorithm to adjust the monetary supply (perhaps in response to difficulty, since the system already measures that). Of course, a stable exchange rate doesn't make speculators rich.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#343

Post by smackfu » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

balakk wrote: post #80

What would it take for somebody like Amazon or eBay to (even partially) support bitcoins? How much of a risk could it be?

I see no real incentive for a retailer to trade in a currency that is fluctuating wildly. If they wanted to be currency traders, they would be currency traders.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#344

Post by seanalltogether » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:25 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #292

seanalltogether wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK land rights are much different then the US owing to their history of kings and lords. You don't pay property tax[1] on the land you hold. As a result there isn't much incentive to ever sell your land. Since other people still want to live on your land though you set up a deal so that they can build houses and live on that land, but they have to pay you rent. You are effectively a landlord in the truest sense of th…

I would point out that outside of London this is not exactly common.

The entire crown estate is held as a lease holding, and they have a lot of property in England. I know that in Northern Ireland there are many semi-detached houses on leasehold.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#345

Post by smackfu » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:28 PM UTC

jamoes wrote: post #293

smsm42 wrote: post #238

It looks like a classic bubble now - while slow gains programmed in could be justifiable, this seems to be driven purely by expectations of future price rises - which is a classic bubble sign. So far, all bubbles popped sooner or later. Maybe this would be the only one in history that doesn't - I wouldn't bet on that, but maybe someone would and become a millionaire. Or lose all his money.

From 2003 to 2013, the price of AAPL rose from $11/share to over $400/share. Rapid price increase doesn't always mean "bubble". Sometimes innovative things are created.

Glossing over the little trip AAPL took to $700. You can have a bubble and a real price increase, on top of each other.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#346

Post by mrb » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:30 PM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #203

wwwtyro wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about an automatically-adjusted price scheme where the price varies according to the demand? You might even automatically optimize profits this way.

That is an extremely cool idea. Why worry about setting the exchange rate yourself when you can let the market do it for you!

Not only that is a cool idea, but that is what some Bitcoin shopping carts (eg. see bitcoinstore.com) and payment processors (eg. Bitpay) already do!

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#347

Post by alttab » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #298

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.

USD is a worse investment, and it seems like Real Estate is not much better than Gold :-p Stocks as investment: http://www.macrotrends.org/1378/dow-to-gold-ratio-100-year-h... And of course, ycombinator. You know... the angel fund / venture capitalist firm that runs this website? We're all here because of investors investing into technology. They do so because they believe they can ultimately make money with technolo…

we dont know why they are investing, or maybe you do. i wpyldnt be aurprised if they did invest in gold real estate and stocks simply for diversification

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#348

Post by SilasX » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #265

aneth4 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one theory, and is the prevailing one. It is not necessarily correct. Regardless, it is certainly a consumer's right to store their assets in something that is not inflationary, as most do. Is the population holding empty real estate or gold instead of currency really that much better for the economy? No. Smart money will simply shift out of cash in an inflationary environment, and the value will not necessar…

"Is the population holding empty real estate or gold instead of currency really that much better for the economy? No." A population holding productive factories, tools, and land is a whole lot better for the economy than people hoarding gold.

And a population withholding investment capital when those (actually very heterogeneous) tools when they're for unsustainable business plans is better than one in which people have to invest in some business plan to preserve what they have.

It's really not as simple as "investment = good". It's good when it's for stuff that produces value. It's not good when it's invested for the sake of investing and ends up in the stocks of corrupt corporations and shady ventures.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#349

Post by mrb » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

iso-8859-1 wrote: post #329

nawitus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bitcoin ever gets widely adopted, one bitcoin will be worth atleast thousands of dollars.

did you do the math or are you just pulling numbers out of your hat?

That is just math.

The worldwide money supply is roughly 50 trillion USD (~20 trillion USD + ~20 trillion EUR + others).

If Bitcoin ends up capturing 0.1% of $50 trillion, this is $50 billion, divided by 21M bitcoins total = $2400 per bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#350

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

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.

I just noticed something: your links are "lying with statistics". Everyone knows that if you want to "prove" that Gold is a good investment, just start your graphs at 1970s.

After all, Gold reached a glorious bubble of inflation-adjusted $2200+ / ounce in 1970s, and has fallen since then. (yes, even with today's inflated prices, Gold is no where near its inflation-adjusted high).

Lets take a more reasonable graph of Gold, ehh? Something longer term... and see what happens to your trend.

http://www.macrotrends.org/1437/gold-to-s-p-500-ratio

Gold's trend is downward compared to the majority of the market. Each valley is lower, and each peak is lower than the last (with exception of stagflation period in the 70s)