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Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

nytimes.com

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Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#121

Post by blibble »

duxup wrote: post #99
simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

The amazing transparency of the crypto tech has been overshadowed by a total lack of transparency in every other way.

it's almost as if fraud is mostly a societal problem rather than a technological problem...

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#122

Post by lawlessone »

btctw12345 wrote: post #85
throwaway30yo wrote: post #60

Could be the best buying opportunity of the year. As someone involved in bitcoin since 2012, these cycles are pretty standard. It went from $1000 to around $250 iirc at one point and recovered. No reason it cant go from $20000 to $5000 and recover. It may take many years, but its not as if all crypto will die overnight. I see crypto being big in the more distant future, 15-20 years away when many of the problems are…

Crypto may win but what makes you think it will be Bitcoin? Bitcoin is useless as a currency right now because of fees and transaction times. If that doesn't get fixed than what purpose does it serve?

lightning network will fix much of that.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#123

Post by roywiggins »

jnordwick wrote: post #103

Here a possible explanation on what Tether is doing and the economics behind why there is such an incentive behind pump and dump BTC. I think they are running a currency board pegging USDT to USD, and then using the BTC gained to push up BTC even further. Part of the idea of a currency is a stable value, that means supply and demand need to be matched. With a fixed quantity such as all the common cryptos, when demand…

> A currency peggged to an underlying doesnt mean you need to hold all the underlying. You just need to intervene in the market when your target price rises or falls to much

Which works great until it doesn't, and then it gets costly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

Tether claims to avoid the problem by literally holding a dollar in cash for every tether it has minted, so it can't be attacked- no matter how many people try to sell Tether, it can always buy up all the outstanding Tether with dollars and maintain it at parity.

It's hard to tell the difference until the company runs out of money, and then the currency collapses all at once.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#124

Post by [deleted] »

cptskippy wrote: post #35
granaldo wrote: post #27

Is Tether highly exposed only to bitcoin and not ethereum? Bitcoin price seems to be taking a heavier hit than Ether https://www.coingecko.com/en

I was noticing that the other day. I wonder if that's because Ethereum has contract functionality and thus as some intrinsic value to it.

[deleted]

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#125

Post by paulgb »

tomtimtall wrote: post #115
paulgb wrote: post #34

I find it weird that people assume this is intentional market manipulation. If they are in fact fraudulent (I think they are), being able to print money is a business model in itself; you don't need to intentionally manipulate the market (but could end up doing so accidentally)

It looks like they might have used the money that should have backed tether to buy bitcoin, and then whenever the market looked like it might be correcting they issued more to stop it from falling and buy the dip.

This is my hypothesis as well, although even simpler: they never sold the USDT for USD in the first place, but used it to buy BTC directly.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#126

Post by hockeybias »

afjl wrote: post #68
epmaybe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you said is in jest, but did you read what you quoted? The individual in question worked at goldman sachs as an analyst/trader for maybe 3 years (AngelList), and hasn't worked there in at least two years.

This is actually very common, especially in "bulge" tier companies. My best friend interned at GS and has accepted a job there; apparently, all newly-hired analyst/traders bust their ass for the first 2 or 3 ish years before getting "hired away" by a better paying, less demanding company (typically in private equity, VC, asset management, etc). Same happens in the accounting industry.

Or they burn out and find satisfaction in other careers.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#127

Post by blueprint »

duxup wrote: post #99
simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

The amazing transparency of the crypto tech has been overshadowed by a total lack of transparency in every other way.

You mean the transparency of private individuals and organizations managing their own funds? Ok, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you are entitled to and able to access that information and that it is somehow more available in _existing_ centralized systems. How are you going to enforce or even verify the degree of a centralized governance system's transparency? You can't. So your comment is somewhat deceptive, imo.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#128

Post by geerlingguy »

conanbatt wrote: post #36
granaldo wrote: post #27

Is Tether highly exposed only to bitcoin and not ethereum? Bitcoin price seems to be taking a heavier hit than Ether https://www.coingecko.com/en

This is noticeable and a trend for quite some time. ETH might actually have some inelastic demand by the developers of tokens, so its more resistance to volatility. All crypto is taking a hit right now, but eth is gaining share.

Somewhat, but it's falling now (within the past hour). Seems like it's not as divorced from Bitcoin's moves as optimists would like.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#129

Post by lloyd-christmas »

JonnyNova wrote: post #114
FiveSquared wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true, but however, what if Bitcoin goes on like the Video Game Crash of 1983, the Second AI Winter, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

Apples to oranges, Bitcoin isn't cryptos as a whole. Future cryptos will absolutely succeed Bitcoin.

Their comment is based on historical facts, making it apples and oranges. Your speculation has no substance, but is 'absolutely' true? I'm not sure I follow that logic.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#130

Post by kelvin0 »

My question is: what is the value of a Bitcoin? It looks to me like a great way to transfer currency and facilitate exchange of goods, but not much more than that.

So 'investing' in this digital currency itself does not make much sense to me, because intrinsically it has no 'real' value. I might be misinformed about the subject, in which case I would gladly like to be shown my error.

For example, why don't I invest in Yuan or the Pound instead of Bitcoins? From my perspective the only thing driving up the price of Bitcoin is the demand for it by 'crypto-investors', which is completely artificial and they are not chasing any tangible value.

Can anyone enlighten me?

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