Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180 • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by tribaal » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:06 AM UTC

adnam wrote: post #40

tribaal wrote: 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/

2.5B is the price Microsoft paid for Minecraft.

There is approximately 1.3 Trillion Dollars in paper/coin form, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed01.html, and that's just USD.

So yeah, anecdotal.

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

#142

Post by justincormack » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:06 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #87

redthrowaway wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no grounds to say that BTC should be a superior store of value. Aside from its very public history of being an absolutely abysmal store of value, it also has no central bank tending its value, as fiat currencies do, and no substantial trade denominated in it, which is what gives fiat currencies value in forex markets. It is solely a speculative vehicle. It sucks at commerce and it sucks at investment. Bitco…

I think you're attacking somewhat of a weak-man: the people saying Bitcoin as it is valued right now is any sort of store of value (and there are, indeed, such people) are obviously slightly insane. But in a long-term sense—an imagined future where all the speculative value has gone out of Bitcoin and it is now just "worth what it is worth"—it would make a fairly good store of value, in exactly the same way gold woul…

It is worth nothing in that case. Why bitcoin not dogecoin or anything else? There is no special intrinsic value in bitcoin over the others, so there is still an infinite amount that can be made.

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

#143

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:07 AM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #86

hueving wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Actually I find the problem of stashing gold very tricky. A bank vault seems like a bad idea because of the history when the government seized the gold and people weren't allowed to open their bank safes without a policeman. Hiding it at home seems risky because of burglaries. I haven't found a solution yet, that's why I don't own any gold. With bitcoin, at least I can spread the risk, like putting a part of the "sec…

People are still upset about 1933, I see. It's an interesting case as both a huge widespread human rights violation (leaning very heavily on the concept of "public interest") while being part of a set of measures which greatly improved the productive (rather than hoarding) side of the economy.

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

#144

Post by olalonde » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:07 AM UTC

yen223 wrote: post #114

olalonde wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banks can already transfer fund between themselves electronically and efficiently. And a bank account is exactly storing paper currency digitally. Sure, but it doesn't matter what benefits Bitcoin offers to banks (although I do think you are overlooking a few). If banks ever were to support BTC denominated accounts, it would be because of consumer demand, not because Bitcoin is more efficient for them to store/tran…

The predictable monetary supply of Bitcoin is precisely why it is doomed to fail. Specifically, Bitcoin's deflationary nature. In the best case scenario, Bitcoin will continue to experience unstable boom-bust cycles as prices will rise when people start hoarding their coins, then crash again when people dump their Bitcoin en masse once prices hit a high enough peak. This is great for speculators, terrible for everyon…

The things that make deflation bad for traditional currencies don't necessarily apply to bitcoin. There are good arguments on both sides and no consensus like you seem to imply. This debate has been done to death so I'll defer to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deflationary_spiral.

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

#145

Post by Fuxy » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:09 AM UTC

yen223 wrote: post #114

olalonde wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banks can already transfer fund between themselves electronically and efficiently. And a bank account is exactly storing paper currency digitally. Sure, but it doesn't matter what benefits Bitcoin offers to banks (although I do think you are overlooking a few). If banks ever were to support BTC denominated accounts, it would be because of consumer demand, not because Bitcoin is more efficient for them to store/tran…

The predictable monetary supply of Bitcoin is precisely why it is doomed to fail. Specifically, Bitcoin's deflationary nature. In the best case scenario, Bitcoin will continue to experience unstable boom-bust cycles as prices will rise when people start hoarding their coins, then crash again when people dump their Bitcoin en masse once prices hit a high enough peak. This is great for speculators, terrible for everyon…

Bitcoin is not ready for for pure bitcoin dealings, Coinbase is on the right track for now we need services that are basically abstractions over another currency.

Pure bitcoins dealing will start getting adopted by the average folk first once the availability and ease of use problem is solved.

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

#146

Post by jasonisalive » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #106

bigbugbag wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be mistaken here, the day your bank disappear all your deposits and interests disappear with it. You probably this cannot happen which is what people believe until it happened to them, and this happened all around the world. In Europe a 2013 law is now in effect which basically states no more bank bail-outs, from now on it will be bail-ins. In other words if a bank fails it will use its customer's deposits to…

>...all your deposits and interests disappear with it The US, EU and many other countries have deopsit insurance* schemes that limit risk to depositors. You may not get all your money back if you have large deposits, but for example in the EU you're generaly guaranteed to get at least the first 50,000 Euros. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit_insurance

This isn't better. It encourages savers to be reckless in their choice of bank, and thus banks to be reckless in their lending policies, because the profits of risky loans are privatised while the losses are socialised. The ultimate loser is everybody, because the cycle of bank bailouts can only be sustained by printing money, devaluing everyone's savings and damaging the economy by degrading economic signals. You might think you reap a benefit by being able to trust the security of your deposits, but trust me, any benefit is on average far, far outweighed by the costs.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #87

redthrowaway wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no grounds to say that BTC should be a superior store of value. Aside from its very public history of being an absolutely abysmal store of value, it also has no central bank tending its value, as fiat currencies do, and no substantial trade denominated in it, which is what gives fiat currencies value in forex markets. It is solely a speculative vehicle. It sucks at commerce and it sucks at investment. Bitco…

I think you're attacking somewhat of a weak-man: the people saying Bitcoin as it is valued right now is any sort of store of value (and there are, indeed, such people) are obviously slightly insane. But in a long-term sense—an imagined future where all the speculative value has gone out of Bitcoin and it is now just "worth what it is worth"—it would make a fairly good store of value, in exactly the same way gold woul…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by olalonde » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #136

olalonde wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banks can already transfer fund between themselves electronically and efficiently. And a bank account is exactly storing paper currency digitally. Sure, but it doesn't matter what benefits Bitcoin offers to banks (although I do think you are overlooking a few). If banks ever were to support BTC denominated accounts, it would be because of consumer demand, not because Bitcoin is more efficient for them to store/tran…

Unlike the baking systems "digital currency" which can be confiscated from its owner or it owner prevented from using it in certain situations (see Wikileaks) bitcoin give you complete control over your own hard earned money and the causes you choose to support. It may not be much of a currency at the moment since banks are attempting hard to prevent its use but the freedom it gives you outweighs the risk of it being…

I agree with all your points. My point was that Bitcoin would still offer benefits over other currencies even if it didn't completely replace the traditional banking system.

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

#149

Post by derefr » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:11 AM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #134

derefr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're attacking somewhat of a weak-man: the people saying Bitcoin as it is valued right now is any sort of store of value (and there are, indeed, such people) are obviously slightly insane. But in a long-term sense—an imagined future where all the speculative value has gone out of Bitcoin and it is now just "worth what it is worth"—it would make a fairly good store of value, in exactly the same way gold woul…

A store of value must be such over any given timeframe. If the balance in your savings account is worth $100 today, $50 in three months, $150 in six months, and $75 in a year, then it is a terrible store of value -- regardless of whether it's worth $200 two years from now. Similarly, talking about imagined futures is not a convincing way to defend a currency as a store of value. If you have to posit that your money w…

I'm not saying people should be putting money into Bitcoin now because they should assume A, B, and C will be true.

What I'm saying is that there's no reason to assume that you won't see Bitcoin's value stabilize e.g. ten years from now, and Bitcoin become a useful store of value from that point forward.

Or, to put it another way, just because the Bitcoin that exists today is a bad store of value, doesn't mean that "Bitcoin is a bad store of value" is an immutable fact about Bitcoin. It could just be a fact about today.

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

#150

Post by EricBlair » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 10:12 AM UTC

tribaal wrote: 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 think you see many things. Like just how widely Bitcoin has already become. Just yesterday I read about 10,000 Spanish atms being converted to bitcoin.

"No interest rate"

Why would there be? There's no risk. There isn't a government of Bitcoinlandia with a debt and deficit(s) it needs to finance.

Whatever currency you're holding now isn't paying you a real rate of interest. Your stupidity is clearly of the American variety so those US dollars you buy your gmo foodstuffs with has lost 96-98% of it's value the past 41/42 years. Why do you think a Coke no longer cost nickel?

When you deposit money in a bank, you're loaning them your money. It's no longer yours and when they run into trouble with their trillions in deriatives, guess whose on the hook for it? Why you, unsecured creditor. http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/11/warning-bank-de...

"and you have to secure it yourself?"

Yeah and that ass you were born with, eventually you'll have to wipe it yourself because mom won't be around forever.

Clearly it isn't for you.

"Bitcoin is the electronic version of "let's buy a lot of gold and stash it somewhere"."

Do you have any idea how well one would have done the past decade had they 'stashed' some gold?

It's hard to believe people like you actually exist. I'm looking for some sarcasm but all am seeing is a statist shill.

Your taking some sort of perverse thrill in other people losing money speaks to your low character.