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Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

bitcoinity.org

61–70 of 348 posts

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#61
post #5

Not really surprising. 2014 was meant to be the year of bitcoin and it flopped as far as the general public was concerned. Bitcoin picked up some more merchants but they almost universally saw disappointing sales or dramatic drop offs(Overstock the poster child which at one point was claiming serious expectations of $15-20m in bitcoin sales ended up with a 5th of the lower end of their claim). Mining companies are cl…

> a 3rd of the lower end of their claim

$5M USD in Bitcoin sales is pretty astonishing, actually.

EDIT: 1/5 of $15M is still pretty astonishing. I expected something around 250K in BTC-denominated sales.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#62

Went to purchase $100 worth of Bitcoin back in the day at $0.03 ea. CC didn't go through. Thought I would try again the next morning with a different card. After sleeping on it, decided it was probably a waste of $100. I'm even less inclined to spend $100 now.

bitcoin regret, a sign of the times

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#63
post #10

Yeah, as much as I like the concept of bitcoin (and the blockchain), I don't see adoption becoming anything more than anecdotal. No interest rate, and you have to secure it yourself? No thanks. My "big bad bank" guarantees me at least a small interest in saving money, and if my card is stolen, I get a new one in 24 hours and all transactions are cancelled. I'm happy to pay some transaction fees ("extortion!") to get…

I don't own any bitcoins, but felt like pointing a couple of things out. Whatever shreds of interest your bank gives you will be way, way less than the inflation you're experiencing. In other words, your money's purchasing power keeps decreasing even if you're getting some interest on it, ie. you're losing your wealth. Bitcoin doesn't experience inflation like that, so it should be a better store of value than your f…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#64
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks can already transfer fund between themselves electronically and efficiently. And a bank account is exactly storing paper currency digitally. Again, I don't see what the innovation here is, except the technical aspects (the blockchain as a distributed system is very clever).

What do you mean 'a bank account is exactly storing paper currency digitally'?

A bank account is numbers in a computer saying that you have $x. You have access to digital money which you can convert to paper money at a bank branch/ATM or one of their partners but until you do so you hold digital currency.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#65
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people(in western nations) learn about it and respond almost unanimously with 'Meh'. I have very mundane needs, and I've never figured out a compelling case for me to use bitcoin. In general, it's always been more trouble than convenience. I know there are people with exotic needs, but I think the majority of people are more like me.

When was the last time you transferred money to someone (esp. out of country), how much did it cost, and how long did it take? Now, imagine you're poor, your family lives abroad, and a $20 fee on a $500 transfer is indeed a big issue. There are usability concerns (a bitcoin ATM to deposit money and have it sent to an address would be nice) but the use case of near-zero, same-day money transfers is enormous. In the af…

What happens when my family, let's say in Mexico, receives the $500 and needs to buy food? Is there any way, currently, that they can they do so for less than $20? (Seriously asking, I don't really know.)

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#66
post #5

Not really surprising. 2014 was meant to be the year of bitcoin and it flopped as far as the general public was concerned. Bitcoin picked up some more merchants but they almost universally saw disappointing sales or dramatic drop offs(Overstock the poster child which at one point was claiming serious expectations of $15-20m in bitcoin sales ended up with a 5th of the lower end of their claim). Mining companies are cl…

> a 3rd of the lower end of their claim $5M USD in Bitcoin sales is pretty astonishing, actually. EDIT: 1/5 of $15M is still pretty astonishing. I expected something around 250K in BTC-denominated sales.

I made a mistake in typing that it was $3m. 1/3rd of which was in the first week. I'll correct it above.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#68
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain?

[deleted]

And in the mean-time crush US-based companies investing in fracking and oil stands? We agree on the price going down to $20 per barrel, but disagree that this is some sort of additional sanction on Russia when it's clearly an anti-competitive move by the Saudis to maintain dominance during a time of political transition.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#69
post #13
post #10

Yeah, as much as I like the concept of bitcoin (and the blockchain), I don't see adoption becoming anything more than anecdotal. No interest rate, and you have to secure it yourself? No thanks. My "big bad bank" guarantees me at least a small interest in saving money, and if my card is stolen, I get a new one in 24 hours and all transactions are cancelled. I'm happy to pay some transaction fees ("extortion!") to get…

>Bitcoin is the electronic version of "let's buy a lot of gold and stash it somewhere". It's even worse than that because normal people at least have a decent idea of when their gold is secure. A non-techie just has to trust that the online bitcoin provider or author of the wallet is doing what he/she really says and in a secure fashion.

Dedicated hardware wallets help to some extent, and they already exist and work (e.x. Trezor). It's hard for people to understand backups, security updates, "don't open that funny-cat-photos.exe file from your aunt", but easy to understand "if this device is lost or stolen, my money is gone"

You have to trust the hardware (open source hardware/firmware will be an improvement), and verify addresses out of band (see https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-you-think-the-pki-sucks-b... for solutions), but otherwise you can safely use it on even a malware infested computer.

As a bonus, it can be protected by a pin (with firmware-enforced rate limits). And backups of the seed can be made in case the hardware wallet is stolen/lost/destroyed. They can even be split up using Shamir's Secret Sharing.

(Eventually mobile devices will be able to accomplish the same thing. You could imagine a more advanced version of Apple's "Secure Enclave" that presents the user with a UI (rendered by the Secure Enclave coprocessor) to authorize transactions)

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#70
post #40
post #10

Yeah, as much as I like the concept of bitcoin (and the blockchain), I don't see adoption becoming anything more than anecdotal. No interest rate, and you have to secure it yourself? No thanks. My "big bad bank" guarantees me at least a small interest in saving money, and if my card is stolen, I get a new one in 24 hours and all transactions are cancelled. I'm happy to pay some transaction fees ("extortion!") to get…

"I don't see adoption becoming anything more than anecdotal." Well the value of the whole blockchain is over $2.5Bn, so it's more than anecdotal. http://coinmarketcap.com/

Can you find another mainstream currency whose value is not several orders bigger? $2.5Bn is anecdotal at the world scale.
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