Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin hits $10,000

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 389 posts

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#221

Post by 0xCMP »

shitgoose wrote: post #200
wils1245 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point the arguments for or against the idea of cryptocurrency are pretty irrelevant. Bitfinex has injected millions of dollars of fake money into the ecosystem, users are reporting an ability to withdraw money from it on Reddit, and their Twitter account's last message was reports of a DDoS two days ago with no updates. https://twitter.com/bitfinex https://www.reddit.com/r/bitfinex/comments/7fx9z9/bitfinex_w.…

"Bitfinex has injected millions of dollars of fake money into the ecosystem" please, explain what money is "fake" and what "injected" and "ecosystem" mean.

I'm not clear on the the details, but if you wanted to look in to it a lot stems from their "Tether" crypto currency which is supposedly backed by real US Dollars, but many suspect that they created new unbacked "tethers" to buy and bid-up BTC.

In a sense people are worried that they're literally making up money on the promise they have US Dollars so they can buy up BTC and sell it to maybe regain the missing USD? Unclear.

Need to remember that this is the same place, I believe, that was "hacked" and they spread the losses across all their customers if their costs were actually lost or not. Details have been hard to come by which is where the suspicion seems to have really started.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#222

Post by heartbreak »

acchow wrote: post #46
wintom wrote: post #17

“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…

"Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven." Ordinary people have never heard of bitcoin. I have relatives working in finance who don't understand bitcoin.

Agreed. Just asked my wife, “What’s Bitcoin?” and she replied, “What? Sounds like a game. I’m trying to work.”

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#223

Post by beaner »

dpweb wrote: post #163
wintom wrote: post #17

“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…

`100k puts the market at cap at a trillion, it’s not that crazy if you remember that Gold is several times that`. Similar things heard during every irrational bubble. I believe people often trot out the 'actual worthlessness' of fiat currency, to support a misguided idea that btc must be the democratic antidote which will free countless millions from the financial enslavement of the global financial machine. Currency…

Currency is currency because it transfers value efficiently. Outlawed currencies are not very efficient at transferring value. Fiat (lawful) currencies are more efficient by default. The digitization and decentralization of currency allows for the introduction of a non-fiat, hard-to-outlaw competitor which is more efficient than fiat in many contexts. Maybe not all contexts, but enough to give it value.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#224

Post by meowface »

lojack wrote: post #194
acchow wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of billionaires in the world. Are they kidnapped with great frequency?

Much easier to steal a private key than liquidate a billion dollars from many banks and other illiquid sources. Especially when most of those transactions can be reversed, or otherwise raise immediate red flags.

But if you have his private key you still need to convert the Bitcoins. This isn't easy to do anonymously, as can be seen with Alexander Vinnik's arrest. If someone actually robbed Satoshi and let him live, he'd probably alert the world and the wallet would be watched like a hawk. And even if he's dead or unaware of the theft, a lot of people will notice of Satoshi's Bitcoins start being transferred.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#225

Post by dahdum »

wils1245 wrote: post #206
dahdum wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Friedman memo showed they were 1-1 cash/usdt back in September, and they've stated clearly it's institutional money coming in. In fact, that's exactly what I would expect for large buyers trying to spread their purchases across exchanges who don't use USD directly. "I agree that if no one was able to get fiat in or out of Tether and USDT were still being issued that would be a huge problem. As it stands, however,…

If you believe them you must believe that they've received $250 million dollars in the month of November alone. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/ This on a daily pattern that looks like a step function. Where could this money possibly be coming from? Anonymous millionaires?

Hedge funds, family offices, etc.. $250M isn't all that much. Arrington is trying to raise a $100M crypto fund, Novogratz is raising a $500M one.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#226

Post by [deleted] »

Torn wrote: post #70
wallace_f wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Satoshi's life be at risk?

It's theorised they have ~1m bitcoins, at 10k each that's a 10 billion net-worth. Presumably that's enough for people to want to hunt them down and coerce them into giving up private keys https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-f...

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#228

Post by dcw303 »

I'd like to see Bitcoin gain more utility as a payment platform. I'm hoping that CME's plan to offer futures contracts gives merchants the stability they need to offer products priced in BTC online.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#229

Post by Joeboy »

ad_hominem wrote: post #208
wintom wrote: post #17

“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…

I wish Bitcoin was as decentralized as everyone says it is. Unlike fiat cash or gold, you can't spend it without an internet connection (in order to sync up the public ledger and submit the transaction). You're subject to miners to approve your transactions, which in theory should be democratized, but isn't really since it's based on computing power, which in turn can be bought or centralized in mining pools. You're…

> I wish Bitcoin was as decentralized as everyone says it is.

I'm trying to cash out some of mine and I've been downloading the blockchain for four days now. I had to buy a new hard drive before I could even start. I've read that it takes over an hour to do a transaction now, although I'm not yet in a position to verify that. If you look on the btc related subreddits nobody recommends using a proper client as Satoshi intended, it's all about accounts on websites offering a service that could reasonably be described as "banking".

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#230

Post by 0xCMP »

int_19h wrote: post #150
0bsidian wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me try to make the case for why Bitcoin could be a useful beyond greed. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the…

> You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. How exactly do you transfer your wealth to BTC in this scenario? There aren't many people willing to sell BTC in exchange for a ra…

You'd need to get it while you had a chance (see China, Japan, Korea making massive volumes and for a while a lot of the price gains). Once it all freezes up then all you can do is work/trade/exchange for the BTC or USD from those who have it just like it probably always has in situations like that.

Except now they can't literally come take the USD nor can they freeze in-country or off-shore banks so if that's a real scenario for you BTC is a pretty nice deal.

Post reply on HN