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Bitcoin

Bitcoin 'Roars Back', Surges 50% in 30 Days (forbes.com) 142

Posted by EditorDavid from the magic-internet-money dept.
A week ago bitcoin was trading at $6,000. Today Forbes reports bitcoin "which has been swinging wildly throughout this week, has suddenly rallied back to over $8,000 per bitcoin, somewhat putting to rest investor and trader fears the recent bitcoin bull run may have already ended": The bitcoin price has risen around 50% over the last 30 days, pulling many other major cryptocurrencies with it, including ethereum, Ripple's XRP, bitcoin cash, litecoin, EOS and binance coin... The total bitcoin and cryptocurrency market capitalization, which lost some $30 billion in a matter of minutes on Friday morning, has now recovered almost all of that value and is back around $250 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap which tracks most major cryptocurrencies...

The bitcoin and cryptocurrency sector has been celebrating a raft of positive news all this week, from retail adoption [at Starbucks, Nordstrom And Whole Foods] to legendary investor support. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technical data is also showing the bitcoin price could be heading higher, with well-known bitcoin trader Eric Choe saying he expects the digital token to reach $22,600 sometime in 2020, which would be a fresh bitcoin all-time.
Mark Mobius, the investor cofounder of Mobius Capital Partners who once branded bitcoin a "real fraud", now says instead that in the future bitcoin will be "alive and well."
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Bitcoin 'Roars Back', Surges 50% in 30 Days More

Bitcoin 'Roars Back', Surges 50% in 30 Days

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  • Mark Mobius, once branded as the investor cofounder of Mobius Capital Partners, now labeled a âoereal fraudâ.
  • More like "it appears to."

    Appearances can be deceptive.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 )

      More like "it appears to."

      Appearances can be deceptive.

      In the case of Bitcon, the value is exactly what someone else will pay for it. Unlike a house, for example where you can live, or even a dollar, with which you can pay off your tax liabilities, there is nothing else. This makes it great for random speculation and gambling. If you were planning to use it as a currency and, say, pay someone in bitcoin, suddenly finding that it's 30% more expensive is more than a bit inconvenient.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        In the case of Bitcon, the value is exactly what someone else will pay for it.

        Actually, it is significantly lower. Of course, you have to offer significantly below market to get somebody to buy in the first place. But your statement covers that. But then, if you want your transaction to be processed at all, you have to offer a significant transaction fee. That fee can get so high it eats all possible profits.

        • You can easily sell 100 million USD of Bitcoin for no fees - https://support.pro.coinbase.c... [coinbase.com] and there is enough buy support to fill these orders without a lot of slippage. Typically it is wiser to do this on OTC markets with larger orders or spread the 100 million between multiple exchanges but Bitcoin is far more liquid than you make it out to be. Here are the numbers($226,156,503 USD) of Buy limit orders right now in BTC - https://coinmarketbook.cc/ [coinmarketbook.cc]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        And it's easy for people with a lot of money to inflate and deflate the value of it at will to make a profit.

  • I took my profits from Bitcoin and invested it all in Tesla stock! Rei and I are going to be even richer!

  • Pump and Dump Redux (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:44PM (#58619480)

    Tuuuuuuulips, get yer tuuuuuuulips.

    • Came here for the hurr durr tulips comment and was not disappointed. Please point me to the nearest tulip exchange, I'll check back.

    • Tulip speculative bubble lasted over 10 years? Are you still going to be making that correlation when Bitcoin is far more valuable 10 years in the future? Are you aware that TD Ameritrade, ICE(parent company of NYSE), and Fidelity are heavily invested in selling Bitcoin and will be allowing institutional investors to buy it this year? Even if you are skeptical towards Bitcoin(as you should be) you have to realize this isn't going to end anytime soon as these large respected financial institutions are going

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The interesting part of this latest bull run wasn’t the ticker, but the order book at the start of it. The price spike that spurred this run was caused by a couple of large buy orders and suspiciously fresh large sell orders on the way up, in a slow market. Typical whale doing a pump. Previous bull runs were started in a like manner. Funny thing is that technical analysis seems to work well on bitcoin, like a self fulfilling prophecy with so many speculators poring over charts, which also makes it vul

  • It's cycling between $8-7000 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:46PM (#58619484)
    It goes down and up like a roller coaster, no way to guarantee a stable price. People have short memories, and they are going to have a bad harvest of their e-tulips soon.

    • Tell me how bitcoin is any different than trading stocks?

      • Owning stock often entitles you to go to the annual shareholders' meeting and all of the free coffee and bars that entails.

      • Re:It's cycling between $8-7000 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @04:11PM (#58619624) Journal

        "Tell me how bitcoin is any different than trading stocks?"

          Regulated, orderly and transparent markets where brokers can't front-run buyer or seller orders. Pretty much the first thing that pops to mind.

      • Re:It's cycling between $8-7000 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by teg ( 97890 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @04:20PM (#58619666)

        Tell me how bitcoin is any different than trading stocks?

        Owning a stock is owning a part of a company, and you can also get a part of the profit it generates. The only purpose whatsoever of owning a bitcoin is selling it to someone else who thinks that he can sell it to someone else - who again thinks that she can sell to someone else for even more.

        The profit of these transactions are, of course, intended to be in real currency. Not bitcoin.

        Bitcoin has is useless as a real currency (hardly usable anywhere, fluctuates wildly), unsafe, is horribly energy inefficient and is the closest thing to "finding a bigger fool"-scheme we've seen for many years. Even sock pupppet [wikipedia.org] made more sense.

        .

        • > The only purpose whatsoever of owning a bitcoin is selling it to someone else who thinks that he can sell it to someone else - who again thinks that she can sell to someone else for even more.

          You realize that is the function of money, right ?

          The difference between bitcoin and the USD is that the USD is guaranteed to slowly lose value over time, while bitcoin slowly gains over time.

          • The difference between bitcoin and the USD is that the USD is guaranteed to slowly lose value over time, while bitcoin slowly gains over time.

            That's not the only difference. Also, it should be noted that deflationary currencies are problematic. They discourage investing and liquidity, and tend to make financial shocks much sharper. This is why central banks aim for the currencies they manage to have a gentle, predictable inflation over time.

      • You don't know? That might explain a lot.

      • Tell me how bitcoin is any different than trading stocks?

        Most bitcoin supporters don't know the difference either.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Even junk bonds (that have no real-world value whatsoever, like BitCoin) have some laws and mechanisms limiting fraud and insider trading. Bitcoin has nothing.

      • Most stocks relate to a physical company, which has actual tangible assets. Even if your company goes bankrupt, there are still assets there worth something. Desks, chairs, patents, computers, test equipment, etc. Bitcoin, though, has ZERO intrinsic value because it has no tangible asset.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mhkohne ( 3854 )

        Bitcoin is traded much more thinly, on exchanges that are regulated by precisely no one, which regularly 'get hacked' losing lots of other people's money. That is, when the founders don't die after having played games with the money they were holding for other people. https://amycastor.com/category/quadriga/

        Bitcoin's ups and downs regularly give every appearance of being the result of large investors playing around with the market to take money from smaller investors.

        https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/201

      • Wash trading in shares is illegal.

    • Bitcoin has been one of the best investments anybody could make in the 2+ year horizons.
  • It's truly amazing how powerful individuals managing large amounts of money can mouth off without consequence. Their positions and income haven't been affected at all, even though they spoke stupidly and without insight about Bitcoin. Where is the expertise? Why are they still employed? Why does a Nobel Prize winner in economics still have speaking gigs? And it is even more true that Jamie Dimon should be fired by his board.

  • Meanwhile, in reality... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ToTheStars ( 4807725 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:53PM (#58619522)
    A single transaction caused the price to drop by ~20%...probably an exchange looking to dump, because it was a single transaction with 5,000 BTC (~$40M). Prices have since recovered, but this is not a sign of a healthy economic sector.

    More details: https://amycastor.com/2019/05/... [amycastor.com], https://davidgerard.co.uk/bloc... [davidgerard.co.uk]

    • Hey, it'll stabilize once the NFL starts paying it's players in Bitcoin [ccn.com]. Heck, that's probably what killed the AAF [aaf.com].

    • It only spiked up 50% in the first place because of a Slashdot article last week.

    • I don't think the Bitcoin Core price reflects its value (only the Cash chain isn't a technological deadend), but what you're describing is a temporary blip that exhausts the orderbook at higher prices on exchanges. This happens to low-volume securities of every type.

      I mean, to be forthright, you have to say how long that price sat at a 20% discount, right?

    • A single transaction caused the price to drop by ~20%...probably an exchange looking to dump, because it was a single transaction with 5,000 BTC (~$40M). Prices have since recovered, but this is not a sign of a healthy economic sector.

      This is exactly what speculators want. Most "retail investors" are desperate for the next "sure thing". Volatility is a feature, for them.

      • Volatility is a problem for currencies , but doesn't effect me because I am never forced to only use Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is down more than 20%, I use fiat, otherwise I spend my Bitcoin because I get 20% off of amazon meaning I either break even or get 20-50% off amazon by using Bitcoin. Of course people are forced to use Bitcoin for DNM txs , but there are plenty of "white" market currency use cases for bitcoin as well.

  • PUMP & DUMP & REPEAT!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Price of shares of a scam going up does not mean, it is not a scam anymore!!!

    Unfortunately our world never runout of greater fools, who are easy to make thinking "it starting to going up again & I must not miss the train & I must invest all my remaining life savings ASAP"!!!

    Every Ponzi scam ends sooner or later!!!

    I wonder who will they will blame, the people who lost all their money in the end, after so much warning???

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Hehehehe, indeed. This Mobius guy must have found that there are even greater fools available and now wants a piece of that action.

      The ones that lose will 90% blame somebody else and insist "it could have worked" and 10% will learn something, if that many. The 90% will also fall for the next scam of this type if they have money left to lose.

  • Different this time. (Score:3)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @04:17PM (#58619660) Journal

    Do you know the definition of insanity?

    https://youtu.be/OIfXdtml2gU [youtu.be]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Most of the human race does not have independent intelligence, but just follows the crowd and their own base desires. Greed works pretty well to manipulate people.

  • Everyone seems to have given up on making BTC a usable currency for small transactions with fast validation of trades. It has become a digital "investment," playing off mankind's ancient affection for hoards of ones and zeroes. Occasionally, it gets used to pay off a kidnapper or a ransomware gang, just to make life interesting.

    As far as this week's action: Is somebody doing a giant pump-and-dump?

    • Everyone seems to have given up on making BTC a usable currency for small transactions with fast validation of trades

      Bitcoin Core abandoned "Peer to Peer Electronic Cash" in 2017. Bitcoin upgraded to remain able to scale for cash uses (Bitcoin Cash chain) but the Core people refused to upgrade, so it's totally unusable for its original intended purpose now.

      As far as this week's action: Is somebody doing a giant pump-and-dump?

      Tether (USDT) is about to go under. The NYAG is conducting a criminal investigati

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      As far as this week's action: Is somebody doing a giant pump-and-dump?

      Pretty obviously. And this Mobius guy has found that the scam is legal and wants in on the action. He has certainly _not_ changed his mind.

    • I use Bitcoin all the time as a currency with instant confirmations, and fees below 1 US penny per transaction. When I use bitcoin , I get 5% off my Pizza, or ~20% off Amazon as well.

  • Here is a question for Slashdot readers, many of whom I suspect are knowledgeable about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies whereas I am not. I understand the hypothetical possibilities of cryptocurrencies as a new form of money suited for the techno era. I understand the hypothetical merits of blockchain. I have also observed the cycles of enthusiasm and pessimism, positive views and negative. I understand it has become a medium of exchange on the dark web. I have even seen some reputable vendors willing to

    • It's like any other currency, and the bitcoin market is just another FOREX exchange. If you want to understand Bitcoin, look at FOREX exchanges and understand them, first. Then you will be equipped to understand the nuances of bitcoin, and you will also know more than 99.9% of the posters on the topic.
      • It's like any other currency? What currency goes through the valuation gyrations, save the currency of a collapsing country (like Venezuela)?

        • It's like any other currency? What currency goes through the valuation gyrations, save the currency of a collapsing country (like Venezuela)?

          I see you didn't take my advice, and you don't understand FOREX, what causes the value to go up, and what causes it to go down.

          • I understand FOREX, I do it regularly (having accounts overseas as well as in the US). I trade quite a bit, sometimes intentionally, usually automatically (thanks, HSBC, for free FOREX trades on rules!). What currency has 30-50% swings in it, on a weekly or monthly basis?

            Claiming bitcoin is like any other currency is like stating your housecat is like any other Bengal tiger.

            • I understand FOREX

              Then what are the things that cause a currency to go up, and what are the things that cause them to go down?

              • Trust and economic conditions in the underlying country behind the currency. Usually the equivalent of treasury bills. For bitcoin? It's sheer hype and hope. Bitcoin is nothing like a regular currency. Only folks heavily invested in crypto currencies claim otherwise, in some attempt to lend legitimacy to the coins, so they can sell out and make something from literally nothing.
      • The difference between BTC and other currencies is the economy that underpins them. The volume of the economy (goods and services being traded, not volume on a stock or coin exchange) does not directly drive the value of its currency, but there is a relation: if your economy grows, you can print extra money without incurring inflation (there’s more to it than that but in principle it works). The BTC economy on the other hand is tiny compared to the speculative volume, hence the insane volatility. In o

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Bitcoin has no chance to ever become a "reputable currency". There is basically no protection against pump & dump scams (as the one currently run and where the original story is part of the scam), the mechanism is clunky and slow and there is no additional benefit like anonymity.

      In principle, the idea of a cryptocurrency has some merit, bit Bitcoin is sadly lacking to make it a viable candidate. If we ever see one that works, it will have a rock-solid exchange rate, ease of use, fast transactions, high

      • Very thoughtful insightful answer. Thank you.

      • If we ever see one that works, it will have a rock-solid exchange rate, ease of use, fast transactions, high level of security and no speculation.

        In other words, it will have to be centrally managed by authority of a government treasury. Cryptocurrency is basically useless until the government gets in on it.

    • Bitcoin has become slightly less volatile over the years , and the hope is it will become less volatile with more liquidity in the future. Bitcoin volatility doesn't effect me much because I am never forced to only use Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is down more than 20%, I use fiat, otherwise I spend my Bitcoin because I get 20% off of amazon meaning I either break even or get 20-50% off amazon by using Bitcoin.

    • > How is it inherently different than playing at a casino or any other game of chance backed solely by the real money that will be exchanged between the losers and the winners?

      Is there any casino where you can make one small bet then wait 5 years and be guaranteed to win form double to 100 times the amount you bet?

      The reason its not a casino is because its not a zero sum game.

  • Buy low, sell high.

  • crypto pyramid scheme (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bitcoin is not really a currency.

    No one uses it as a currency.

    It is only really used a a pure investment vehicle with no backing assets.

    It mimics a scarce resource, by tying the creation of new coins to an exponential burn of natural resources.

    To restate, the value is not tied to any creating or obtaining any asset, rather it is tied to the destruction of assets.

    While blockchain in general could be implemented in a reasonable way, tied to meaningful work or assets.
    Bitcoin and similar schemes are the opposit

    • Gold currently is mined and refined often with cyanide or mercury as a value component of exchange in the world economy.

      Bitcoin yes uses resources in the energy sector as well, but it is somewhat cleaner in a literal sense if hydroelectric is utilized and economics wise since it ha the least centralized control of its value or more importantly, utilization!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Gold is not mined with cyanide. Cyanide is used in gold ore processing to effectively float off the gold from the waste. The cyanide is - for the most part - recaptured. Mining is energy intensive (also sometimes hydro), but it produces a moderately useful physical product. Gold is used as a store of wealth and in electronics, jewelery, etc. The process produces something other than waste heat, and is, therefore, nothing whatsoever like Bitcoin.

      • Gold at least has value in manufacturing processes. Bitcoin? What can I plate with bitcoin, what can I shield with bitcoin?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      To be fair, Bitcoin could have been a currency, but the speculation and the clunky, slow, and manipulation-prone mechanism it uses made that impossible. At this time, it is a completely empty shell, it has zero intrinsic value. As the ones behind the repeatedly done pump&dump steps have managed to keep the illusion that it has value up in an large group of greedy morons (that, as is customary in any good scam, think they are smarter than everybody else) the fraud can continue nicely.

      This "message" serve

    • Bitcoin is not really a currency.

      No one uses it as a currency.

      It is only really used a a pure investment vehicle with no backing assets.

      It mimics a scarce resource, by tying the creation of new coins to an exponential burn of natural resources.

      To restate, the value is not tied to any creating or obtaining any asset, rather it is tied to the destruction of assets.

      While blockchain in general could be implemented in a reasonable way, tied to meaningful work or assets. Bitcoin and similar schemes are the opposite, and destructive by nature.

      This is probably the most insightful summary of BitCoin on this thread.

  • Someone with a huge stash of bitcoin and influence has decided it was time to manipulate the market again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. And this Mobius guy has either been bought, or he found that it was a legal scam after all and wants some part of the action.

  • Of course, theis whole speculation bubble based on _absolutely_ _nothing_ (Bitcoin has no actual uses at this time. No, _really_ not.) is not stable in any way. The whole course-changes have the structure of a classical pump&dump, as is common with "junk" bonds. You know, make sure it raises a bit, get all the idiots in to make it raise more, then cash out and leave all the idiots much poorer. Don't worry, as long as they still have money to lose, the morons will come back with delusions of getting rich

  • Color me skeptical (Score:3)

    by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @06:41PM (#58620342)
    I thought that what was going on was just a campaign to get the next batch of suckers to throw in their money so that those who control bitcoin can make theirs. I guess I was wrong; this time it is for real, isn't it?

    • Yes, now is the time to put in your retirement money and the kid's college savings. This baby is going to the moon!

      (Specifically people like me will be mooning the next batch of suckers going in for this latest pump and dump)

  • Stable unit of exchange and store of value? (Score:4, Informative)

    by jschultz410 ( 583092 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @07:25PM (#58620472)

    No, it's acting much more like a speculative investment. Check back in ten years after all the hype and speculation has worn off.

  • The surge is pump and dump (Score:3)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @08:07PM (#58620644)
    I thought something like that would happen as a lot of article and blog suddenly started speaking of a rebound : I thought "somebody bought a lot when it was low, now they are trying to pump it". Prepare to have a lot of sucker lose their money as in a few day when a few will dump before everybody else.

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