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Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

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111–120 of 688 posts

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#111
post #11

As an outside observer, who has no crypto holdings at all, but is very deeply invested in the public stock market with a heavy weight on technology stocks... this doesn't look like a crash to me at all. It just looks like some steam being let off and old investors cash out and new investors get more comfortable with how much and where to invest. I consider crypto currency as it is to be an elaborate Ponzi scheme (per…

Bitcoin & Ether are both down -40% from a week to a month ago. Both of those are, in theory, large enough that investors "letting off some steam" shouldn't move them that much. If $SPY dropped 40% we'd all call it a crash. This isn't that different. Also unlike the stock market, crypto is under the delusion of being a viable currency. If USD or Euro dropped even 20% we'd start questioning if it's a recession, much le…

Imagine one person moving $SPY or USD tens of percentage points by tweeting a meme or two. The volatility in crypto is quite something.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#112
post #11

As an outside observer, who has no crypto holdings at all, but is very deeply invested in the public stock market with a heavy weight on technology stocks... this doesn't look like a crash to me at all. It just looks like some steam being let off and old investors cash out and new investors get more comfortable with how much and where to invest. I consider crypto currency as it is to be an elaborate Ponzi scheme (per…

Bitcoin & Ether are both down -40% from a week to a month ago. Both of those are, in theory, large enough that investors "letting off some steam" shouldn't move them that much. If $SPY dropped 40% we'd all call it a crash. This isn't that different. Also unlike the stock market, crypto is under the delusion of being a viable currency. If USD or Euro dropped even 20% we'd start questioning if it's a recession, much le…

That's because Bitcoin is very tightly held, and the amount of tradeable float is very very small compared to holdings.

This results in outsized volatility, as it is still a developing market. 1T for a global currency is very small.

We'll see how it behaves at 10T.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only say this about 1% of the time I read stuff like this, and it's still too much: _Bitcoin doesn't use GPUs to mine with_. It's been custom ASICs for the last eight years or so. I think.

ASICs presumably take up valuable chip fab capacity at a time where we are going through a lengthy chips shortage that has real-world manufacturing impact on real goods people use to perform useful work.

A lot of that particular shortage happened because everyone cancelled their preexisting contracts and now they have to renegotiate at a new cost basis, after the government has thrown trillions of new dollars into the economy.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#114
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with no real opinion on crypto the arrogant stupidity of the anti-crypto crowd (really prevalent on HN) is also quite tiring.

For me, it's because the hype isn't around the technology (which is the interesting part and for the most part, why we're on HN), it's around the speculation. From the outside, looks like a bunch of gamblers constantly getting each other off on whether their bets will make them millionares. It's just...sad...at a level.

A fair opinion to have. I feel every HN thread on crypto now though dissolves to negativity (without any substance) + toxicity really quickly.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#115
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take: There might well be ponzi schemes on top of the bitcoin infrastructure, but the technology behind bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme. It might well be that a lot of people are crazed over it and want to buy bitcoin and push up the price, but that's because there is something here with cryptocurrency. It definitely is a new way of accounting, and it could potentially be a hedge against the fiat system. Th…

> I still think it is revolutionary technology that may well revolutionise things in 5-10 or 50 years, who knows. If there's one thing I love most about the technology behind bitcoin, it is the permanent, public, unalterable ledger of every purchase I've ever made and every purchase I'll every make, and who I gave the money to. I'm super excited about the complete lack of personal financial privacy that Bitcoin's blo…

It's a bit more nuanced isn't it (or am I mistaken)? All you see in the ledgers is the (hopefully single use) addresses the money is sent to, plus all addresses that come after it. There's not much in the system itself that links people / organisations to addresses, right? You'll have to get that information from outside the system: you know yourself, and maybe the receiver as a person, but where it then ends up requires you to obtain knowledge that's not readily available.

Sure there's a lot stored, which does bring privacy concerns that are quite different from our current financial system, I'm not debating that, but it's not as obvious as you put it, as far as I understood it.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only say this about 1% of the time I read stuff like this, and it's still too much: _Bitcoin doesn't use GPUs to mine with_. It's been custom ASICs for the last eight years or so. I think.

Apps like Nicehash mine the most profitable shitcoin using your GPU and convert it to Bitcoin. When the market pumps people buy up cards and use it to make good money.

I'll have to try it on my eight-year old laptop then. Maybe the crash will make it suddenly efficient.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#117
post #11

As an outside observer, who has no crypto holdings at all, but is very deeply invested in the public stock market with a heavy weight on technology stocks... this doesn't look like a crash to me at all. It just looks like some steam being let off and old investors cash out and new investors get more comfortable with how much and where to invest. I consider crypto currency as it is to be an elaborate Ponzi scheme (per…

What happens ultimately? Regulated out of existance? Attacked and destroyed by the NSA? Banned?

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#118
Crypto is DE-CENTRALIZED. As long as there are people out there that rather trust a ledger produced by a collection of de-centralized computers than a ledger held by a private institution/government (closed) its value will remain useful/practical.

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#119
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin & Ether are both down -40% from a week to a month ago. Both of those are, in theory, large enough that investors "letting off some steam" shouldn't move them that much. If $SPY dropped 40% we'd all call it a crash. This isn't that different. Also unlike the stock market, crypto is under the delusion of being a viable currency. If USD or Euro dropped even 20% we'd start questioning if it's a recession, much le…

> If $SPY dropped 40% we'd all call it a crash. This isn't that different If $SPY was 40% up since last month, would that be normal? ETH is still currently higher than its value from April 19th. Cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile. This isn't that far from normal.

SPY is up 50% since 2019 (pre covid crash). As someone partially invested in index ETFs, this worries me. Index funds aren't supposed to be nitro, they are supposed to be slow and plodding, and 10% annual is supposed to be huge. I think major indices should be nice, slow, inertial gains from ~6-7% annual, tops. Why? When at any point as an engineer or a scientist have you observed large exponential growth to be sustainable in any context???

EDIT: Ooops It is ~50% (258 in Jan 2019 * 1.50 = 380)

Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip

#120
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the only utility it has is that it appreciates over time. Of course, until it no longer does, then becomes worthless.

And that I can send money worldwide to anyone at any time with no middleman.

No, you can send arbitrary hashes to anyone at any time. It's just a mutual agreement that those hashes are worth anything at all.
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