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Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

bitcoinwisdom.com

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Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#41

Post by sanswork »

jaequery wrote: post #18
Nursie wrote: post #8

Maybe as the last big wave of people flocking to BTC figured out there's not a lot to do with it and lose interest? Because we've got to have moved past the point where it's all currency enthusiasts, and if you're not enthusiastic about alt. currency in general, is there any reason yet to prefer it?

bitcoin will be on your mind the next time you want to send/receive money oversees, i guarantee you that.

I send money internationally a couple times a month and have known about bitcoin for a long time and its never even a consideration. Even though I have access to exchanges where the fees are low the time effort in first sending my money to an exchange then buying then sending it to the other side then having them sell on an exchange and then transfer the funds out is so much more painful than the existing "Open wire transfer, receive funds next day" unless your time is worth $0 it costs more too. There are now a few "instant" exchanges but unfortunately all instant methods at them are still marked up a fair bit.

Add in the fact that if you don't have access to a good exchange and you're using LBC or an ATM you're probably paying more than wire fees for any non-negligible amount even without considering the time.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#42

Post by paulgb »

vijayboyapati wrote: post #27

The thing I find interesting is how thin the order book is: https://www.bitstamp.net/market/order_book/ It shows that you don't need to sell a particularly large block of btc to substantially move the price in either direction. If one big buyer jumped into the market it could easily move the price $50+. This shows that bitcoin is still immature and in its infancy. The more the liquidity of bitcoin grows, the less thi…

Couldn't there be automated traders waiting to jump in if the price changes, rather than having orders on the books? (I know they exist, I just don't know whether they would appear in the order book)

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#43

Post by sanswork »

zanny wrote: post #38
pron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like a serious event creating major doubt in USD. I think you are way overestimating Bitcoin's (current) significance. If something major happens to the USD -- i.e. something major happens to the US economy -- Bitcoin will be the last thing people think about, and there are quite a few other currencies (with much better track records) that people will prefer before betting their money on Bitcoin. > It's entirely po…

> there are quite a few other currencies (with much better track records) that people will prefer before betting their money on Bitcoin. So I'm in the US. Assuming hyperinflation starts tomorrow, the only money I have, or anyone else will accept broadly enough to keep me able to exchange in the market, is bitcoin. Nobody has Euros, nobody takes them, nobody takes Canadian dollars on the boarder, and nobody would acce…

If you're in the US and hyperinflation starts tomorrow who is going to be buying your hyperinflating USD for bitcoin?

>Nobody has Euros, nobody takes them, nobody takes Canadian dollars on the boarder

That is because they don't have to USD is fairly stable if it starts to go into hyperinflation that will change quickly. Also as a Canadian that travels to the US a lot. There are large swaths of the US where CAD is accepted.

>Overstock is apparently making like 2% of revenue from bitcoin sales.

At last disclosure Overstock had done $2.6m in bitcoin revenue in 9 months. They are far from 2% of revenue. Their CEO keeps throwing out random numbers about what they plan to do by the end of the year that don't make sense(He still claims $10-20m by year end regularly) to cover the fact that their bitcoin revenue has been dropping from day one.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#44

Post by pron »

zanny wrote: post #38
pron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like a serious event creating major doubt in USD. I think you are way overestimating Bitcoin's (current) significance. If something major happens to the USD -- i.e. something major happens to the US economy -- Bitcoin will be the last thing people think about, and there are quite a few other currencies (with much better track records) that people will prefer before betting their money on Bitcoin. > It's entirely po…

> there are quite a few other currencies (with much better track records) that people will prefer before betting their money on Bitcoin. So I'm in the US. Assuming hyperinflation starts tomorrow, the only money I have, or anyone else will accept broadly enough to keep me able to exchange in the market, is bitcoin. Nobody has Euros, nobody takes them, nobody takes Canadian dollars on the boarder, and nobody would acce…

Assuming this Glen Beckian Armageddon, I doubt you'll be able to use Bitcoin much at all, as it requires internet access and electricity, both could experience disruptions in the chaos that will surely ensue when world's leading economy collapses (remember, nobody (seriously) lost faith in the USD even during the 2008 meltdown, so nothing short of a '29-like collapse will do it). If that world-changing catastrophe happens, people will start taking Euros, Pounds, Yens, or Yuans long before BTC.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#45

Post by marcosdumay »

I've always dismissed people complaining about volatility, as it's not really a huge problem for currencies... But I've never seen a real-time track of Bitcoin!

There is volatility, and there are currencies that change each second the same that the normal "volatile" currencies change a week. Bitcoin seems to be the latter, and that's a qualitatively different problem from mere volatility.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#46

Post by imaginenore »

bdcravens wrote: post #29

The easier it gets to buy Bitcoin, and accept Bitcoin, the worse it will be. Even if you wanted to spend Bitcoin, you had to think ahead. Now Circle lets you buy within minutes (in most cases) of setting up your account. On the other side of things, Bitpay and Coinbase let merchants convert back to USD (or other currency) right away. So it's possible to do "just in time Bitcoin": Bitcoin is merely the payment protoco…

> When Bitcoin becomes a pure cash equivalent, no one will care about the price. I believe that once the price becomes irrelevant, it'll trend downward

Assuming world wide adoption scenario, that's mathematically impossible. People generally have some amount of wealth (most of us have it in a bank). If you have, let's say, 100 million people (a small fraction of the world really) using bitcoin instead of fiat, and, let's say, they have $2,000 worth of bitcoin on average (which is much lower than the current US average), it would mean that 1 bitcoin = $2,000 * 100M / 21M = $9523.8.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#47

Post by gatsby »

iowai wrote: post #14

I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it…

Sorry, calling bs on this.

Your last four comments all start with "I once was an intern" - and my guess is that's why your alias is "I.o.w.a.i."

Did all this stuff really happen? And to you?

Because from your past comments, you were an intern in the "golden 90's" and in this scenario, in 2014.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#48

Post by jcfrei »

paulgb wrote: post #42
vijayboyapati wrote: post #27

The thing I find interesting is how thin the order book is: https://www.bitstamp.net/market/order_book/ It shows that you don't need to sell a particularly large block of btc to substantially move the price in either direction. If one big buyer jumped into the market it could easily move the price $50+. This shows that bitcoin is still immature and in its infancy. The more the liquidity of bitcoin grows, the less thi…

Couldn't there be automated traders waiting to jump in if the price changes, rather than having orders on the books? (I know they exist, I just don't know whether they would appear in the order book)

At the current levels of volatility it's probably not a good idea to keep a lot of open orders - unless you can watch the markets 24/7. Automated traders would likely wait for a significant price change and then execute a market order or just place an order on very short notice.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#49

Post by [deleted] »

iowai wrote: post #14

I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#50

Post by jcfrei »

Nursie wrote: post #8

Maybe as the last big wave of people flocking to BTC figured out there's not a lot to do with it and lose interest? Because we've got to have moved past the point where it's all currency enthusiasts, and if you're not enthusiastic about alt. currency in general, is there any reason yet to prefer it?

It'll take a lot of time and it'll probably show up in places where we didn't really expect it. I believe 10 years down the road BTC will be pretty big in Africa.
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