Prediction time: 1 BTC under $15 within 60 days and relatively stable around $6-$9 for the next 18 months.
Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#32The thing is, it doesn't matter. As far as I know, nobody prices anything in Bitcoins, they price things in USD/AUD/ and then convert that amount to Bitcoins for the transaction . You might end up paying 1.00 BTC, or 0.6 BTC, but it still works out to the be same in USD/AUD/ (numbers made up for example)
Though very hard swings in short time DOES hinder wide adoption as it can cause retailers to lose money while a transaction is 'en route'. No one wants to use a currency that swings 20% in hours of trading. Hell, that's prob 4-5x the margin on a lot of computer hardware.
BitPay, for example, absorbs the risk. https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway-api
> The net amount that BitPay merchants receive is equal to the gross amount (USD) of the order submitted, minus our fee.
> It does not matter how many bitcoins we collect, how long it takes to collect them, what we can sell them for, or how long it takes to sell them.
(not affiliated, just said the same thing last time this came up on HN)
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeup. Volatile thing continues to be volatile hardly seems to be news.
It's interesting how 'Bitcoin falls $10!!' is news, while the fact that it's gone up 50%+ in less than a month, and over 1000% in 1 year somehow is not.
We just saw an article yesterday.
"Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5323867 83 votes
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#34Something else people seem to forget is: This is an unregulated electronic currency without a paper trail.
Can you say "A market that a group of people wanting to rig value would LOVE!"
Nothing (as far as I can tell) stopping a group of large BTC owners to completely run the price on BTC to their advantage. Wouldn't even take that much money to drive prices, and impossible (almost) to detect and do something about.
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#35Something else people seem to forget is: This is an unregulated electronic currency without a paper trail. Can you say "A market that a group of people wanting to rig value would LOVE!" Nothing (as far as I can tell) stopping a group of large BTC owners to completely run the price on BTC to their advantage. Wouldn't even take that much money to drive prices, and impossible (almost) to detect and do something about.
What do you mean no paper trail? I thought Bitcoin worked by having a master list of EVERY transaction and then hashing the most recent for each new transaction.
This is from the Bitcoin doc [1]:
We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership.
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#36This post is an hour old and the price is already back in the $42 range.
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#37I'm actually in the process of putting together a report on Bitcoin for a university computer security course.
It looks like HN cares a lot about the topic, would anyone care to point me towards some informative sources?
I've done most of my research through the official wiki and articles regarding Mt. Gox and hardware development into ASIC
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#38Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeup. Volatile thing continues to be volatile hardly seems to be news.
It's interesting how 'Bitcoin falls $10!!' is news, while the fact that it's gone up 50%+ in less than a month, and over 1000% in 1 year somehow is not.
Of course its gain has been news.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5262120 (when it broke $30)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5144181 (when it broke $20)
etc, plus the many stories about ability to pay for things like Reddit Gold, domain names, and more with Bitcoin.
1) You may hold Bitcoin, and talk from detractors is always frustrating.
2) Many Bitcoin advocates (I've mined and held Bitcoin, so I'll count myself in this crowd) tend to extoll Bitcoin's virtues, while downplaying or explaining away downturns
3) Even if it were true that the drop were news while the gain wasn't, that's how things work around here. Much has been made of Apple's stock drops, but in every case, Apple was actually up year-over-year, and it's 3 and 5 year price was way up.
Re: Bitcoin drops 10USD in less than 4 hours
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin can't stay cheap forever, either more people use it and it has to gain value (because its so small at the moment) or people stop using it and the value ends at 0. Those are your two options. Grow until the Bitcoin economy is worth some 10 Billion at least, or it'll be evidently dead and close to 0. Its much more unlikely Bitcoins will stay around $20 - $60 for the next 5 years. (Although still possible)
I have no idea what variables you are using, or how you are reasoning that bitcoins somehow are 'cheap' at a certain price. Using the only scale we have available (history) $40+ per BTC is VASTLY overpriced considering the previous historical fair market value.
What makes you confident that you know that the current price is "VASTLY" above the "fair market value?" I thought that markets determine fair market values--which is exactly what's happening at the exchanges.