What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices • Hacker News Board

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#31

Post by dfsegoat » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:38 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #19

sAbakumoff wrote: post #13

https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/

Thanks, this is about general markets however. I've been trading BTC since 2011. Doesn't matter if it's tulip bulbs, baseball cards, bitcoins, houses, or dotcom companies, markets operate on similar principles and talking about the market dynamics doesn't say anything about the asset in question. Cryptocurrency is a viable means of exchange and the technology is great and all but that doesn't change the rules or mech…

>> 'Doesn't matter if it's tulip bulbs, baseball cards, bitcoins..markets operate on similar principles.'

An elegant raison d'être for this whole thread: Not having any real technical knowledge of economics, it was very easy to head down the rabbit-hole of conspiracy theories and hype - this brought me back to thinking fundamentally (I live in one of the most ridiculous housing market "bubbles" - but it's been a "bubble" for about 10 years now).

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#32

Post by indubitable » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:39 AM UTC

meritt wrote: post #22

indubitable wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire market cap of Tether is a small fraction of the daily volume of BTC. If 100% of Tether was traded for BTC, it would just be a blip on a single day's pricing.

I think you're significantly overestimating the total liquidity available at a given point in time.

https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-...

Daily transactional BTC value has been in the billions for months, even before the recent price explosion. Yesterday's was a [very] record breaking value pushing $6 billion. The total market cap of Tether is less than $0.9 billion. That would've been about a single day's volume back in July. And to clarify, we're talking about if 100% of every single Tether is being used to purchase BTC with these numbers. That assumption is not correct meaning the actual impact is likely substantially lower.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#33

Post by sAbakumoff » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:39 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #19

sAbakumoff wrote: post #13

https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/

Thanks, this is about general markets however. I've been trading BTC since 2011. Doesn't matter if it's tulip bulbs, baseball cards, bitcoins, houses, or dotcom companies, markets operate on similar principles and talking about the market dynamics doesn't say anything about the asset in question. Cryptocurrency is a viable means of exchange and the technology is great and all but that doesn't change the rules or mech…

au contraire

1) Blockchain and its first application BTC is the most the Most Significant Invention since the Internet and Electricity.

2) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#34

Post by michaelchisari » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:42 AM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #32

meritt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're significantly overestimating the total liquidity available at a given point in time.

https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-... Daily transactional BTC value has been in the billions for months, even before the recent price explosion. Yesterday's was a [very] record breaking value pushing $6 billion. The total market cap of Tether is less than $0.9 billion. That would've been about a single day's volume back in July. And to clarify, we're talking about if 100% of every single Tet…

Coinmarketcap has Tether's 24h trading volume at $1.9 billion (over double the market cap). I find that concerning.

They list the 24h volume for Bitcoin at $24 billion. At 9% or 10% of the 24h volume, Tether could very possibly be a major factor in the bitcoin price spike.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#35

Post by michaelchisari » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:42 AM UTC

cantrip wrote: post #20

RexetBlell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone want to exchange their Bitcoins that are worth over $10,000 each on Coinbase (and can be converted to real dollars) for some tokens that are backed by nothing?

Tether are, ostensibly, backed by $1 in a bank somewhere. Having a dollar token is very useful, since you can move in and out of crypto trading positions into a stable store of value, good old USD. Converting to real money takes a long time so you can't react to the market, and is also taxable and often has other fees on top.

> backed by $1 in a bank somewhere.

Are we sure about this?

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#36

Post by corysama » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:43 AM UTC

RexetBlell wrote: post #12

fmela wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By trading tether issued out of thin air for BTC.

Why would anyone want to exchange their Bitcoins that are worth over $10,000 each on Coinbase (and can be converted to real dollars) for some tokens that are backed by nothing?

It’s used to move large amounts of dollars between exchanges that don’t want to deal with the regulations involved in moving large amounts of dollars.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#37

Post by sAbakumoff » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:45 AM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #29

sAbakumoff wrote: post #13

https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/

May 31, 1897: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” -- Mark Twain (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910)

Fucking A! I Thought about another quote which someone thinks Mr. Twain said : There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and BTC charts.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#38

Post by meritt » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:48 AM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #32

meritt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're significantly overestimating the total liquidity available at a given point in time.

https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-... Daily transactional BTC value has been in the billions for months, even before the recent price explosion. Yesterday's was a [very] record breaking value pushing $6 billion. The total market cap of Tether is less than $0.9 billion. That would've been about a single day's volume back in July. And to clarify, we're talking about if 100% of every single Tet…

> Daily transactional BTC value has been in the billions for months

That's absolutely true but what you cannot tell is how much actual liquidity exists. I was playing around with algorithmic trading this summer and would routinely have days where my personal transactional volume would exceed $500k and I was only playing with $2.5k. Just a lot of very short duration (sometimes holding for mere seconds) trades and I always took the maker side to avoid paying any fees.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#39

Post by jaaames » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:49 AM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #32

meritt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're significantly overestimating the total liquidity available at a given point in time.

https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-... Daily transactional BTC value has been in the billions for months, even before the recent price explosion. Yesterday's was a [very] record breaking value pushing $6 billion. The total market cap of Tether is less than $0.9 billion. That would've been about a single day's volume back in July. And to clarify, we're talking about if 100% of every single Tet…

Exchanges are wash trading to inflate volume. There isn't as much liquidity as they'd like you to believe.

Re: What's Happening with Bitcoin Prices

#40

Post by kristopolous » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 6:50 AM UTC

cantrip wrote: post #9

ComputerGuru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree except the article wasn’t about any specific cause or even this particular wave; just a general explanation of the bitcoin phenomenon that may even be taken as a general explanation for investment any bubble in general.

I disagree. There is a section of the article titled "Where is all this cash coming from?" which claims (via a Reddit thread) that it's individuals buying on credit.

It was because debt-based speculative investing is one of the easiest and most common ways these types of risk are spread. There's lots of other sources of investment, but the debt-based ones are most concerning with respect to the analysis.

The other dangers are municipal general fund and endowment based investments. Local municipalities in countries like Greece and Italy got caught up in the 2008 real estate crash and then all of a sudden, things like street sweeping and garbage pickup stopped. Speculative bubbles cast wide nets.