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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Recovers Some Losses After Its Worst Week Since 2013 (reuters.com) 150

Posted by BeauHD from the backwards-and-forwards-and-upside-down dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Bitcoin fell nearly 30 percent at one stage on Friday to $11,159.93. At 3:09 p.m. (2009 GMT) on Tuesday, bitcoin BTC=BTSP was up 15 percent at $16,030 in light trading on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. The digital currency had risen around twentyfold since the start of the year, climbing from less than $1,000 to as high as $19,666 on Dec. 17 on Bitstamp and to over $20,000 on other exchanges. Critics have pointed to bitcoin's design flaws and hacks of digital "wallets" in which bitcoins are kept as an alternative to traditional currencies. Prices of other cryptocurrencies, which slid along with bitcoin last week, have also recovered, with Ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market size, quoted around $771, up from Sunday's low of $689 but still far from highs around $900 hit last week.
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Bitcoin Recovers Some Losses After Its Worst Week Since 2013 More

Bitcoin Recovers Some Losses After Its Worst Week Since 2013

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  • Once the warehouses of Tulips clear at the temporarily lower prices, Tulip markets will return to astronomic levels, especially once the South Sea boats arrive!

    • Re:Tulip farmers say Tulip market will bounce back (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @05:52PM (#55812051)

      People shit themselves when the Dow Jones index drops a hundred points. Bitcoin just essentially did the equivalent of dropping ten thousand points, and people are laughing it off.

      • This makes the assumption that this market had 10000 points to drop... or can those indices go negative? (actual question, I'm not overly knowledgeable on this topic)
        • In retrospect, it probably sounds like I'm straight out of 1995, or just plain can't do math.

          • Fact: Bitcoin generates nothing out of thin air; If you earned something with Bitcoin then somebody else lost that exact same amount (plus transaction fees).

            This is kindergarten-level math, it means the limiting factor of Bitcoin profit is the amount of money that people can put in and lose.

            Questions:
            a) How long do you think these losses are sustainable?
            b) If you're buying Bitcoin today, what makes you think you're not one of the losers?

            • > Bitcoin generates nothing out of thin air

              There is economic value in the transactions and storage of wealth.

              • There is economic value in the transactions and storage of wealth.

                There's nothing that would make it multiply everybody's money by 1000x just because they put it in there.

                • There's nothing that would make it multiply everybody's money by 1000x just because they put it in there.

                  Correct. But it does have a value. And if it starts at zero, goes to that value, and then stays there forever, that means the early adopters get a profit, and the late adopters get the value. Nobody loses anything.

              • There was economic value in buying and selling of Beanie Babies and storage of Beanie Babies.

                There isn't any more.

            • > Fact: Bitcoin generates nothing out of thin air; If you earned something with Bitcoin then somebody else lost that exact same amount (plus transaction fees).

              This is one of the most ignorant things Ive ever seen on slashdot. What you are basically arguing against is the concept of money itself.

              What you fail to grok is that the economy is not a zero sum game.

              > Fact: Gold generates nothing out of thin air; If you earned something with Gold then somebody else lost that exact same amount (plus transactio

        • The DOW represents real people with real jobs and is a means to gauge the health of actual businesses. Bitcoin is a slot machine in a casino.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by torkus ( 1133985 )

            While I'm not married to crypto currency, the DOW (well, stock prices, the DJIA is mainly a cumulative tracking instrument) are most certainly a gamble too.

            I've seen plenty of relatively minor things vastly change stock prices...or equally, plenty of nothingness drive prices to ridiculous levels.

            Crypto is just at a much more infantile stage which is largely the cause of it's volatility especially when you couple it with all the ceaseless media coverage the last few months. There isn't room for a bazillion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by plopez ( 54068 )

          They can't go negative. DJIA is not a good measure. Fortune 500 and Russel 5000 are a much broader snapshot. And do you own on the ground research. What companies parking lots are full? Which ones do people talk about on the bus in in the cafeteria?
          How many bums jump off the trains in the rail yards? Bums are usually the last to get hired and the first to get laid off. Are there BMWs and Jaguars at thrift stores? Are the number of help wanted ads shrinking or growing? Did your diligent and hard working bro

    • This neck beard thing of being the first person to scream TULIP really is getting old. Bitcoin is still double what is was a month ago.

      • Why is the tulip bubble even used as an analogy? It seems like an easy thing to critique since tulips die and aren't instantly transferable around the world. And they certainly couldn't be traded live simultaneously with thousands of people from around the world on any one of a number of easy to access exchanges. Are people just shallow thinkers? Surely there are much better arguments against crypto than this one? Do rational comparisons not fit the maximum meme word length for social media or something?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by plopez ( 54068 )

          By all means sink you home equity into the market

          • You're an idiot if you sink your home equity into any investment. Bitcoin is great for fast buying and selling. I put some spare cash in here and there and come out ahead.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by torkus ( 1133985 )

              Agreed. Long term vs. short term investment.

              Real estate is generally a good long term investment but it's equally bad to sink all your money into that.

          • By all means sink you home equity into the market

            Blah, blah, I can't make a valid argument so I'm going to run to the entire end of the spectrum to point out some sort of flaw.

            Seriously your entire comment is shit, here's why. Eggs, basket, all of one in the other. Go back in your corner and rethink your argument because clearly there was none that went into this drivel.

      • This neck beard thing of being the first person to scream

        Let me stop you there. This is Slashdot, apparently everything invented in the 70s is the only thing that matters around here. Anything past that is pure shit that eventually will be shown as the shit it truly is. Like literally, from politics to init to technology. If it wasn't invented in the 70s, it's shit and that's what Slashdot is best known for everywhere else on the Internet (which of course was invented in the 70s except for IPv6 which is shit).

        • This neck beard thing of being the first person to scream

          Let me stop you there. This is Slashdot, apparently everything invented in the 70s is the only thing that matters around here. Anything past that is pure shit that eventually will be shown as the shit it truly is. Like literally, from politics to init to technology. If it wasn't invented in the 70s, it's shit and that's what Slashdot is best known for everywhere else on the Internet (which of course was invented in the 70s except for IPv6 which is shit).

          Indeed. For a tech forum, this is a very luddite community in general.

      • This neck beard thing of being the first person to scream TULIP really is getting old. Bitcoin is still double what is was a month ago.

        The tulip bubble is a great example of how a bubble might play out. It doesn't mean that ALL rapidly rising stocks will follow the same model. It's also a bad example because BTC has some valid uses (unlike a tulip that was purely ornamental).

        So, yeah, I think the tulip bubble is a valid point to make, but it doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't mean that BTC is going to follow the same path.

        I'm not willing to invest in bitcoin (I think all the major money to be made was before banks got involved, in

  • It is year end. It makes sense that some of the long term holders (1yr+) sell off to get the lower tax rates. Others maybe splitting the profits between 2018 & 2019. A few of those two groups and then a ton of panicked sellers cashed out.

    Also people probably needed the cash to buy gifts during the year end sales or pay off things.

  • Pump, dump (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @06:02PM (#55812103) Homepage Journal


    while True:
      bitcoin.pump()
      bitcoin.dump()

  • North Korea needed some cash (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @06:22PM (#55812221)
    North Korea probably cashed out, so they could afford a new missile or bomb or something.

    • I heard that Great Leader ordered two pizzas because at 5000 Bitcoins per pizza, it's only for rich and important people like Great Leader.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        I prefer to think of him as the Great Dumpling. If the famine gets severe enough, I'd be a little worried if I were he and his minions started encouraging him to eat more. He'd be self-basting on a spit.

  • Bitcoin, Welcome to wall street (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @06:35PM (#55812301)
    Enter the traders market. The one thing for certain is that the value of Bitcoin will never be stable again.

    .
    Hold them while you can, and don't worry, the price will be back up. Just as soon as those with enough money to manipulate the market are ready to cash in. You just need to sell before they do, and so the price goes back down again.

    You thought the stock market was bad? Companies have intrinsic value. You can sell a physical hole in the ground for cash. Bitcoins are only worth what the people that don't have them assigns to them. Lets hope that value isn't zero anytime soon.

    • You can sell a physical hole in the ground for cash.

      Technically, you're selling the ground that's around the hole.

    • You thought the stock market was bad? Companies have intrinsic value.

      That's the wrong way to look at it. A more informative way to look at it would be as a kind of FOREX arbitrage play. You can make plenty of profit off it by understanding the complexities of supply/demand as related to currency.

      Obviously in this case, profiteering demand is a huge component, but it also was in the Swiss Franc run-up that happened a few years back.

    • More traders usually means volatility goes down. Volatility is determined by average sentiment moving around. The larger the group, the less the average moves.

    • You thought the stock market was bad? Companies have intrinsic value.

      Companies don't have intrinsic value just because they're companies. They must produce something of value, products or services. Now please compare the innovativeness of Bitcoin as a money transfer technology to something like Twitter, instead of treating it like trading cards.

  • Yawn (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @07:36PM (#55812611)

    Seen around the internet [imgs.fyi]

    Bitcoin has "crashed" 30% SIX TIMES in 2017. Each "crash" has been followed by an increase of: 76%, 237%, 183%, 165%, 152%. Bitcoin takes 7 steps forward, 2 steps back. Every 2 steps back is heralded as the end of #bitcoin. Relax!

    • Seen around the internet [imgs.fyi]

      Bitcoin has "crashed" 30% SIX TIMES in 2017. Each "crash" has been followed by an increase of: 76%, 237%, 183%, 165%, 152%. Bitcoin takes 7 steps forward, 2 steps back. Every 2 steps back is heralded as the end of #bitcoin. Relax!

      That sounds exactly like the behavior that I want from a currency.

      • It was a completely new and unknown asset, starting at zero. It's virtually impossible to go from that to a stable value X without volatility on the way.

  • Oh dear, a Reuters article that pimps a shit exchange called bitstamp. Why did I click this?

  • Are we going to have another bitcoin story every time the fucking price changes now?

  • Long-time Wall Streeter here. Actually, the trading dynamics of BTC are very much like any other speculative vehicle, although the short-term volatility is unusually high. (It is hard to get exercised over the nearly 50% retrace that occurred since the peak just under $20,000, especially since its extent was widely predicted by quants. The bounce came almost precisely off the Fibonacci support level around $11,600.)

    Someone else mentioned Forex and many have mentioned equities. (Funny, no one is comparing BT

    • Let me connect one more dot: ARBITRAGE. If I'm right about all of this, then there is some kind of covariance between gold and BTC. Professional traders very much want to precisely quantify this relationship. I read BTC markets as highly illiquid and difficult to trade, whereas gold isn't super-liquid but not really hard to trade for the pros. That means there may be an arb here at low levels of overall value. If BTC futures turn out to be workable and liquid, then arb-trading against gold could become a th

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