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No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

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Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#331

Post by dragonwriter »

natmaka wrote: post #277
wpietri wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fascinating that this is 100% different than what Bitcoin was sold as. The theory of Bitcoin was basically "money without people". You wouldn't have to worry about governments and politics; value would be sent and stored in pure pieces of math. Mere governments couldn't possibly do as well as the glorious algorithms wisely fixed in advance by, etc, etc. But if you're right, Bitcoin has way more politics…

The problem here is not Bitcoin per se, it is the current state of the real world, where anyone can "buy" and "sell" Bitcoin for legal tender. Bitcoin, in a world where it is the sole currency, has the benefits you quoted.

> The problem here is not Bitcoin per se, it is the current state of the real world

If Bitcoin doesn't work in the real world, that's a problem of Bitcoin.

> Bitcoin, in a world where it is the sole currency, has the benefits you quoted.

If Bitcoin doesn't offer sufficient benefits in the real world as it is without being the sole currency in the world, there's no plausible route to it becoming the sole currency.

“My clever idea is great if everyone wakes up one day and abandons all other alternatives for it, but not otherwise” is a long winded way of saying “my idea sucks”.

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#332

Post by Nursie »

apo wrote: post #308

Having seen four of these major wipeouts over the years, here's the pattern for this highly cyclical spectacle: 1. Nobody cares about Bitcoin. If you tell anyone you bought it, they either shrug or laugh. 2. Bitcoin refuses to die. The long-predicted technology show-stoppers never happen and the network keeps chugging. A small but dedicated group of users continues using it on a regular basis. 3. Speculators who had…

The brake on the cycle that I see coming is that eventually, surely, everyone that can take part in steps 3 and 6 has already taken part in one of the cycles and quite a lot of them got burned.

Or more succinctly - surely sooner or later you have to run out of naive speculators?

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#333

Post by timerol »

apo wrote: post #308

Having seen four of these major wipeouts over the years, here's the pattern for this highly cyclical spectacle: 1. Nobody cares about Bitcoin. If you tell anyone you bought it, they either shrug or laugh. 2. Bitcoin refuses to die. The long-predicted technology show-stoppers never happen and the network keeps chugging. A small but dedicated group of users continues using it on a regular basis. 3. Speculators who had…

One potential counterargument to this is scale. Before 2012, I hadn't heard of Bitcoin.

Back in '13, it was me and a couple of my nerd friends who were talking about this crazy Bitcoin surge. I read some about the algorithm, thought it was cool, and left my money elsewhere. It was mostly low-traffic articles or niche sites that talked about it.

A year ago, my dad asked me about it. My coworkers claimed to be experts on it, but only had the most basic understanding of Merkle trees, and no real context on mining difficulty adjustment.

Each successive bubble has involved more and more people who are new to Bitcoin. At some point everyone who cares about the "get rich quick" aspect will have already heard and gotten burned.

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#334

Post by polynomial »

Scoundreller wrote: post #313
Novashi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the bitcoin selloff coincided nicely with the general stock market selloff. I think someone wanted out of bitcoin after staring at a flat price line for 6 months.

As a stock market investor, a flat line for the past 6 months sounds pretty good to me!

but no dividends.

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#335

Post by [deleted] »

qaq wrote: post #106
aphextron wrote: post #5

Everything sells off this time of year. Nasdaq is down 7% on the month. It’s end of year profit-taking for tax purposes. As BTC has become completely mainstream now, this makes sense.

Man all those hedge funds with 100s of data scientist are just waisting resources when the situation is so simple "Everything sells off this time of year"

[deleted]

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#337

Post by dragonwriter »

natmaka wrote: post #309
foepys wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There are currently two super powerful individuals fighting and are allegedly dragging down every thing on the market just because they don't like each other. What makes you think that this would be a good state of affairs for a world currency?

According to this explanation those super powerful individuals "sell" Bitcoins for fiat in order to pay the energy (electricity) they use in order to mine another currency. It is only possible because Bitcoin is not the sole currency. The current financial system faces such battle-ordeals and isn't immune, remember the Black Wednesday.

> According to this explanation those super powerful individuals "sell" Bitcoins for fiat in order to pay the energy (electricity) they use in order to mine another currency. It is only possible because Bitcoin is not the sole currency.

Doesn't it? What changes if you take out the fiat intermediary and buy energy (a fungible, near-universal production input and end-consumer product in one) directly and the competition is about a commodity that is not a currency?

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#338

Post by jayd16 »

apo wrote: post #308

Having seen four of these major wipeouts over the years, here's the pattern for this highly cyclical spectacle: 1. Nobody cares about Bitcoin. If you tell anyone you bought it, they either shrug or laugh. 2. Bitcoin refuses to die. The long-predicted technology show-stoppers never happen and the network keeps chugging. A small but dedicated group of users continues using it on a regular basis. 3. Speculators who had…

You'll notice that absent from this cycle is any kind of productive use or innovation with bitcoin. Its all cyclic hype.

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#339

Post by nothrabannosir »

ceejayoz wrote: post #154
nothrabannosir wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where’s the line ? E.g. If someone asked me for a certified copy of my birth certificate, because of circumstances it would be an enormous slog. Expensive and time consuming. Does that count as can’t? How expensive does it have to be before it’s reasonable to call it “can’t”? I think the bar is lower than the semantics of the word imply. Can’t can mean “theoretically can’t”, but also “it’s unreasonable to do”.

Driver's license or other state/country-issued ID seems like a perfectly reasonable line. https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/274981...

Not if it has to be issued in the country of residence, like mkohlmyr reported. For me that would be basically unachievable. Well, I could retake a driving test here, I guess. That’s quite a bar to clear, if you ask me.

Re: No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250

#340

Post by dragonwriter »

matthewbauer wrote: post #266
lhl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, it’s obvious that the Bitcoin Cash “hash war” has been what’s triggered the fall of the 5K support level (and to me, it’s telling that 200 messages in, no one has really even mentioned it). The contentious fork has been very disruptive, causing BCH trading to be halted and lowering trading volume across the board. At the same time you have a huge redeployment in mining resources, up to 4exa on the Bitcoin.com…

I’ve never understood the commonly held view that miners can effect the price. The distribution of coins is on a fixed schedule it shouldn’t matter how many miners there are. Price should not change from any of that.

> The distribution of coins is on a fixed schedule

No, it's not.

The distribution of coins is affected in the short term by the actions of miners; it has periodic difficulty adjustments to intended to target a fixed long-term rate, but it is not a fixed schedule.

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