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

Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 101 posts

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#31

Post by the_cat_kittles »

anonemouse145 wrote: post #22
the_cat_kittles wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the simplest, most correct understanding. there are some things that drive the price of bitcoin that are more fundamental, like instability of various currencies, and government regulations on btc. but none of those have changed drastically recently. so what is driving the price? hype, and the price itself. i think you should be pretty skeptical any time you made money and youre not sure why.

I know exactly why I made money. This is a ponzi scheme with unlimited uninformed people joining. You feel your personal level of risk, find a time, and invest only what you can afford to lose. You can do the same with Tupperware if you know enough people to sign up under you, grab a bunch of free product and sign out. During previous dips, it was 100% guaranteed you could get a good return in one week. So that's exa…

didnt mean to imply that you or someone else didnt. just that lots of people are deluding themselves in to thinking that they are tech scions who know something special about "blockchain technology" and are profiting off bitcoin because of this. and that is not to say that the tech is not interesting, or without some interesting applications. just that there seem to be a crop of idiots who are acting like they did more than just get temporarily lucky.

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#32

Post by analyst74 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #11

So does nearly every habitual gambler. > “Those are legitimate needs that people have, to figure out if there’s a way to gamble their way to another lifestyle.” I'm not sure who decides what "needs" are "legitimate" -- but can't they just go to casinos, which have been legalized just about everywhere now? Also I can't believe that quote, sounds like a parody.

There are amateur gamblers, then there are professional gamblers.

The later do have systems in place to make money off the former.

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#33

Post by gst »

Zarath wrote: post #29
richardlblair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't realize how long it would take to liquidate a large sum of $$.

Not that hard. Assuming you are storing it in cold storage: 1) Send to GDAX 2) Sell on GDAX 3) Withdraw to Bank

Unfortunately GDAX by default only allows to withdraw $10k per day. It's possible to ask for an increased limit, but reviewing those requests currently seems to take multiple weeks for them.

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#34

Post by icelancer »

richardlblair wrote: post #27
QAPereo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you successfully cash out, you’ve made nothing.

People don't realize how long it would take to liquidate a large sum of $$.

A few seconds on any major exchange, assuming you don't mean in the billions of USD.

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#36

Post by [deleted] »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #11

So does nearly every habitual gambler. > “Those are legitimate needs that people have, to figure out if there’s a way to gamble their way to another lifestyle.” I'm not sure who decides what "needs" are "legitimate" -- but can't they just go to casinos, which have been legalized just about everywhere now? Also I can't believe that quote, sounds like a parody.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#37

Post by nihonde »

mrep wrote: post #25
nihonde wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t downvote it, but it’s so obvious as to be unhelpful. Who needs to be reminded that an asset isn’t worth its price until it’s liquidated? It’s self-evident, and yet you have it following every time someone mentions returns on BTC. You have it at least twice here on this thread, in fact.

For most assets, you can generally assume it will be close to what it currently is priced at. btc is different in that regard because holding onto it for a week or even a day can easily cause it's value to double or half. That's why its different because while you think you have that much money, by the time you actually get around to selling it, the price can be radically different

Some assets are more volitile than others. I feel that we are moving backwards here in terms of restating obvious and extremely basic principles. Anyway, I’m not at all convinced that BTC is different in kind relative to, say, normal FX trading. The spreads do tend to be higher, though. What’s far more interesting to me is BTC’s resilience as an asset in spite of massive, demonstrable (and frankly, predictable and preventable) failures like MtGox.

Edit: Think about shares held in a startup. Those are insanely volitile. Does anyone need to reminded that they aren’t rich until they convert their shares into cash?

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#38

Post by philipwhiuk »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #11

So does nearly every habitual gambler. > “Those are legitimate needs that people have, to figure out if there’s a way to gamble their way to another lifestyle.” I'm not sure who decides what "needs" are "legitimate" -- but can't they just go to casinos, which have been legalized just about everywhere now? Also I can't believe that quote, sounds like a parody.

I mean, the casino is more obviously bias towards an institution.

Re: Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

#40

Post by freeloop3 »

richardlblair wrote: post #27
QAPereo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you successfully cash out, you’ve made nothing.

People don't realize how long it would take to liquidate a large sum of $$.

I've sold and transferred over $800k of cryptocurrencies to a US bank over the course of 3 days. I could probably have done it faster if I tried. This was through Gemini.
Post reply on HN