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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Surges Past $11K. Is It Finally Gaining Acceptance? (cointelegraph.com) 182

Posted by EditorDavid from the growing-overnight dept.
The price of Bitcoin surged past $11,000 today -- less than 24 hours after surging past $10,000.

Ars Technica points out Bitcoin's price has tripled in less than six months, "after crashing from an all-time high around $19,500 in December 2017." And as the price of Ethereum rose above $300 for the first time in nearly a year, Mashable writes that the total value of all cryptocurrencies is now over $300 billion, and suggests the new price milestones may indicate a broader awareness: The $10,000 and the $300 price levels for Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively, are important psychological barriers, and not only because they're nice and round. Last time, those levels were when the 'cab driver' effect was in full swing: Everyone was talking about Bitcoin; Coinbase was adding hundreds of thousands of users on a weekly basis. People who'd never even considered stocks were suddenly stocking up on Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.
"Details about Facebook's long-awaited cryptocurrency brought significant attention to the industry as a whole," reports the Street, "and created anticipation that markets could move higher." Not only will Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, introduce the platform's 2.5 billion users to cryptocurrencies, but the project doesn't take direct aim at bitcoin. Rather than striving to supplant the first and still-most-popular digital currency, Libra caters to the 1.7 billion unbanked around the world by striving to provide a fast, affordable and reliable way to send and receive money...

There is growing evidence that investors view bitcoin has a hedge against global instability, and several factors are creating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in traditional financial markets.
To that point, Forbes reports that "Bitcoin's growing reputation as a 'digital gold' could mean it becomes treated as a safe-haven asset in times of crisis, and the U.K.'s looming Brexit might demonstrate that." Nigel Green, chief executive of the financial advisory group deVere, tells them that "One such way that many are looking to diversify their portfolios and hedge against legitimate risks posed by Brexit is by investing in crypto assets, such as bitcoin."
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Bitcoin Surges Past $11K. Is It Finally Gaining Acceptance? More

Bitcoin Surges Past $11K. Is It Finally Gaining Acceptance?

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  • Didn't you ask that last time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:40AM (#58804444)

    And the time it hit $N, and $M, and $X, and, well, any time it hit any number at all, really.

    The answer is still the same.

    • The 19th century had the Gold Standard - Now, we own an indefinitely inflated fiat currency. Is there any room for a modern 'hard money' with anti-censorship features, and with cross border capability. Only Bitcoin fits that description. The price is just telling us that makes sense for some people. Bitcoin doesn't need any marketing, Bitcoin just need to be here 10 years from now, and it will.

      • There is, and it’s called gold. Like Bitcoin, it no longer serves as a national currency because its supply grows more slowly than the asset base of any modern nation, and so it is now used purely as a store of value.

        But unlike BTC, gold is recognized as a being a valuable commodity by all cultures, and has been since the beginning of history. If you buy some and store it in a physically safe place, you’re not going to wake up one morning and find out that some hacker has walked off with all you

        • Gold was perfect for the 19th century. But now, we have a lot of countries, for instance in Europe, were private property rights are suppressed in a way or another. And with metal detectors, you can't take a plane with your gold. Gold is not easy to process, jewellery is not 100% pure gold, and tungsten has quite the same density as gold. So having a Gold node (to compare with a Bitcoin node) to authenticate what someone gives you, is not an easy task. And we have the Executive Order 6102 under Roosevelt;

          • Gold worked as currency in the millennia when the world ran on a zero-sum economy, when the amount of wealth in the world changed little with time. But with the invention of industrial technology in the early 19th century, the annual increase in net wealth began to consistently outpace the added supply of gold. In the US, 19th century banking was constantly short of money, leading to pressure for ‘bimetallism’, or including silver as a monetary base in addition to gold so that more money could b

      • Only Bitcoin fits that description.

        What about the myriad of alt-coins? Bitcoin's value is based on name recognition, and there's absolutely no reason people couldn't suddenly decide to bail on it and go all in on Etherium, Litecoin, or that even that shit Facebook is launching.

        That's the problem with crypto - the value hinges on the will of the mob, and the mob doesn't always behave rationally.

        • Only Bitcoin fits that description. Bitcoin is a protocol, build to keep a high level of decentralization, and get 'trustlessness' operations. Most Alts, fork the code to break the protocol compatibility, and to add unwanted features like 'premine', Premine allows the Alt coin owner to print its own money at zero cost. You can't find any software angle to attack Bitcoin. Alts are centralized, the coin owner can do whatever he wants, and he works for he sole interest. 'Don't Trust But Verify' doesn't apply,

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:33PM (#58806182)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Sure (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:41AM (#58804450)

    For criminals and drug addicts.

  • NO IT IS NOT GAINING ACCEPTANCE!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bitcoin price had risen above $19K before & it seemed unstoppable to many but what happened later???
    IMHO, this is just whales doing another huge pump & dump cycle!!!

    IMHO, all cryptocurrencies are just a new kind of scam, similar to Ponzi Scheme!!!

    Isn't printing & issuing your own currency and/or stocks illegal & for really good reasons???
    But isn't that what exactly cryptocurrencies really are doing???

    Why do you think "Satoshi" took first 1 MILLION BITCOINS for himself & disappeared into

    • Re:NO IT IS NOT GAINING ACCEPTANCE!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @12:32PM (#58804668) Homepage

      IMHO, this is just whales doing another huge pump & dump cycle!!!

      Quite possibly. Probably, really.

      Why do you think "Satoshi" took first 1 MILLION BITCOINS for himself & disappeared into hiding???

      Maybe he's dead or the wallet is lost otherwise he's got the patience of a saint. None of them have been touched since the inception.

      Bitcoin passes $1, net worth $1M. Does not cash out.
      Bitcoin passes $10, net worth $10M. Does not cash out.
      Bitcoin passes $100, net worth $100M. Does not cash out.
      Bitcoin passes $1000, net worth $1B. Does not cash out.
      Bitcoin passes $10000, net worth $10B. Does not cash out.

      What person, unless they were already born into ridiculous wealth, would not start dipping into these funds? Not even 1% so they can buy a mansion and a sports car? Nobody knows for sure, but we can speculate based on how long it's been since they've been in a transaction. I bet lots of people have lost Bitcoins due to neglect or lack of backups and how many people have a plan to tell the next of kin of their wallet and password? I have the feeling a lot more Bitcoins are dead than anyone imagines. If they had some kind of expiry date like bank notes where you have to 1:1 swap them for new coins every X years or they become invalid the pool would shrink considerably.

      • Not even 1% so they can buy a mansion and a sports car?

        How do you know he didn't ?

        • Re:NO IT IS NOT GAINING ACCEPTANCE!!! (Score:5, Informative)

          by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @12:59PM (#58804790)

          Not even 1% so they can buy a mansion and a sports car?

          How do you know he didn't ?

          The public ledger. :-)

          • The public ledger. :-)

            But do you know all of Satoshi's addresses to check ? :)

            • The ledger is public so all addresses with large balances are well known.
              Is it possible that Satoshi has little pockets left in individual wallets? Yes. But even then he'd have to have bought them back via means that couldn't be linked to his original wallet. It is even possible that he, she or they, bought bitcoin at a later date on an open exchange and are still holding next eggs.

              There are several problems attached to Satoshi's wallet.
              It is well known, so any transaction would probably immediately trigger

      • Let's say they already have a comfortable tech salary. Dipping into their bitcoin stash would let them buy some fancy things, like cars and houses, which would let them live more nicely but which they don't really need. That sounds enticing until you realize the alternative: Hold onto the bitcoins until they possibly become worth not $10 billion, but $1 trillion. That wouldn't make them just wealthy - it would make them powerful on the level of the dictator of a mid-sized country. Wouldn't it be worth savin

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

      Why do you think "Satoshi" took first 1 MILLION BITCOINS for himself & disappeared into hiding???

      And you have proof of this? How did you arrive to this deduction? Especially since no one even knows who s/he is. And you yourself were definitely the first bitcoin adopter AFTER Satoshi that you checked the logs and know exactly that everything owned before you joined are only owned by a single person, who can only be Satoshi? People have been MURDERED for money and nations thrown in RUINS. But you think someone will draw the line at, maybe, lying a little. Online?

    • Isn't printing & issuing your own currency and/or stocks illegal & for really good reasons???

      Not in the US. If you want to publicly sell your stock to general public, there are a lot of rules regarding disclosure, shareholder rights, etc. but you can totally make a company and start selling shares right now. It'll just take a lot of compliance fees. (A lot of those fees go away when you're not SEC-compliant, but that means only employees/qualified investors can own equity.) In the meantime, you

  • so I'm guessing no, it's not. There's been a pretty sharp pullback on government regulations and enforcement these last two years, so it's possible money laundering just picked back up. That and, like TFS said a bunch of speculators after Facebook announced their "currency" (which is really just a securities backed instrument).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You can use bitcoin at overstock.com, Newegg, Microsoft's store, the Xbox store, Expedia, Dish Network to name a few. It's out there, you're just not paying attention to it.

      • Few actually "accepting", don't really touch BTC (Score:5, Informative)

        by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @01:13PM (#58804890)

        You can use bitcoin at overstock.com, Newegg, Microsoft's store, the Xbox store, Expedia, Dish Network to name a few. It's out there, you're just not paying attention to it.

        Few vendors "accepting" bitcoin ever touch or even see a bitcoin. If a customer wishes to pay in bitcoin the transaction is handed off to a bitcoin payment processing service. This service will be given a fiat price (US Dollar, Euro, etc), they will do a real-time conversion into bitcoin and present the customer with that bitcoin amount and a payment address. If and when the payment shows up at that address and is verified the original retailer is notified and their account is credited with the exact fiat amount they originally specified. The retail never saw nor touched a bitcoin, their pricing and accounting is purely in fiat, they were never exposed to any bitcoin price volatility, their tax reporting was not complicated by trading is assets (bitcoins), etc.

        You left Steam off your list .. oh wait .. they dropped bitcoin in December.

        • Re:Few actually "accepting", don't really touch BT (Score:4, Informative)

          by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @01:17PM (#58804908)

          Few vendors "accepting" bitcoin ever touch or even see a bitcoin

          Right, and if I buy something from a vendor in the US or China, they never ever touch or even see a Euro.

          • Few vendors "accepting" bitcoin ever touch or even see a bitcoin

            Right, and if I buy something from a vendor in the US or China, they never ever touch or even see a Euro.

            An international vendor in China that only sees or touches a renminbi (yuan) would be quite the rarity.

            They may need USD or EUR for some of their suppliers, parts, materials, etc. To pay for local shipping, local support, etc. They likely do some pricing and accounting in USD or EUR, and have accounts with those fiat currencies, as a convenience and to avoid exchange or processing fees. For business to business transactions they may very well be wiring USD or EUR from one account to another. Its a comple

        • Vaporcoin

        • To be fair the same can be said about nearly every online payment service. That's not to say that Bitcoin isn't still useless as a transaction tool due to volatility, but companies fundamentally often are completely isolated from the payment type and mechanism. I pay for something worth 20 pounds, my bank shows that 22.40 Euros was deducted from my account, and that the bank did not do any currency conversion.

          Bitcoin via payment processor is no less abstract than any current via payment processor, or any cr

          • The point is that these merchants are not really endorsing bitcoin. Rather they are keeping it and its complications at arms length. This reality contradicts the suggestion of the GP that merchants are endorsing bitcoin.

            If the GP wants to refer to a situation where bitcoin is endorsed then an individual transferring value globally to another individual is a better example. Even there the endorsement is rather mild given that sender and receiver will both typically not hold bitcoins, rather buy and transf
    • Just stop. You have no clue at what is happening. At worst your are some government agent.

  • Not a safe haven (Score:3)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:50AM (#58804482)

    A currency with a wildly fluctuating price relative to goods and other currencies, and which requires complex distributed infrastructure for transactions, is exactly the opposite of a "safe haven".

    • Plenty of people who buy gold as a "safe haven" just get it virtually. No really safe either.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Except you're basically betting on a World War 3/ end of the world type scenario for a major bank to suddenly stop honoring gold certificates. It's much easier to fleece the holders of cash accounts by asking the government to inflate away their cash with a bailout, than to deny you your 2 ounces of gold against the certificate they issued/guarantee. So, you want to argue edge cases with doomsday scenarios go right ahead. It seems to me that doomsday for Bitcoin happened only a year or so ago, and seems to

        • Except you're basically betting on a World War 3/ end of the world type scenario for a major bank to suddenly stop honoring gold certificates.

          Or a major depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] or market manipulation in gold.

          It seems to me that doomsday for Bitcoin happened only a year or so ago

          I think you mean 2011, when it crashed -93%.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
            Yeah, like I said. Doomsday. 1929 was brutal. No one who was anyone had any gold left by 1933 anyway.

  • See the NY AG's complaint about how Tether is not 1:1 backed, how they're gambling with users' funds, and how they are printing up phoney money (and then using it to pump BTC).

    They minted a hundred million new Tether yesterday (and then the pump began):

    https://twitter.com/whale_aler... [twitter.com]

    • They minted a hundred million new Tether yesterday (and then the pump began)

      The rise started in April, actually. Was that also pumped with fake Tether or was that real ?

  • nonetheless the usual mechanism is at work here, in that the only story Bitcoin has left (or perhaps had, ever) is "the price goes up," which makes it an existential imperative that the ecosystem be nudged by its 0.01% ("decentralized!") such that this happens repeatedly, visibly, and spectacularly. The bubble script is a proven cash cow, and the fintech press (to say nothing of the crypto press) takes the bait every single time.

    Play it for what it's worth, but this market cap is held up by the highly constrained float gated through a tiny sliver of large stakeHODLers who all know one another, and even if they are in some cases frenemies at best, all interests ultimately align on goosing the speculative animal instincts again and again.

  • Is Bitcoin Finally Gaining Acceptance? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:53AM (#58804500)

    Is [Bitcoin] Finally Gaining Acceptance?

    No. The owners are largely the same speculators as earlier this year.

    When there are stories of a large number of people buying a cup of coffee with bitcoin, recording the market coin price at the time of the transaction, comparing that price with the price(s) of the coins spent when acquired, computing the capital gain/loss on the coins just spent and recording the identity of the recipient and gain/loss for asset sale tax reporting purposes ... then bitcoin will be gaining acceptance. Seriously, in the US and some other jurisdictions bitcoins are an asset like stocks and subject to the same gain/loss reporting requirement when sold/traded. They are not a currency you simple exchange for goods and services according to the tax reporting agencies. When that changes we can talk again. Or when your wallet software does much of the preceding for you (and can export the info to you tax software) we can talk a bit more too.

    • When there are stories of a large number of people buying a cup of coffee with bitcoin

      Nobody's buying a cup of coffee with gold either, and you wouldn't argue that gold has no acceptance.

      • Gold had no acceptance as a practical currency.

        • Gold had no acceptance as a practical currency.

          But something can have 'acceptance' without having 'acceptance as a practical currency'

          • Then quit promoting is a currency and promote as in intangible good/store of wealth. I don't buy lunch with stocks, but they have value. Likewise, I will never buy lunch with bitcoin.

            • Then quit promoting is a currency

              I didn't do that.

      • When there are stories of a large number of people buying a cup of coffee with bitcoin

        Nobody's buying a cup of coffee with gold either ...

        Until 1971 in the US, yes they were. :-)

        ... and you wouldn't argue that gold has no acceptance.

        While both gold and bitcoin can both be speculative investment vehicles, gold has industrial applications that provide it with a bit of stability in price. Bitcoin has no underlying support. The only thing that has "industrial application" would possibly be the blockchain. However bitcoin is just a user of blockchain, an entirely replaceable user. Bitcoin is merely the first user of blockchain to get a lot of public awareness. Much like the Ford Model T was the first

        • gold has industrial applications that provide it with a bit of stability in price

          So ? Steel has more industrial applications, but is less valuable than gold. Only something like 10% of the yearly mined gold is used for industry. The rest is for storing wealth, and that's what determines its price.

          Bitcoin is far more like the tulip

          Except for the fact that you can grow as many tulips as you want.

          • gold has industrial applications that provide it with a bit of stability in price

            So ? Steel has more industrial applications, but is less valuable than gold. Only something like 10% of the yearly mined gold is used for industry. The rest is for storing wealth, and that's what determines its price.

            I think a large portion of the rest is used for jewelry which is also an industrial application of sorts, or maybe artistic application would be more accurate. The product being jewelry rather than a cell phone.

            Bitcoin is far more like the tulip

            Except for the fact that you can grow as many tulips as you want.

            Not quite. You have to have access to soil, water, nutrients, etc. And with bitcoins you need to have access to mining hardware, electricity, etc.

            • Jewelry use for gold is mainly storage of wealth. If you just want something pretty and durable, there are many cheaper options available. The main reason for buying gold jewelry is because it has value.

              You have to have access to soil, water, nutrients, etc.

              Well, we have plenty of that.

              And with bitcoins you need to have access to mining hardware, electricity, etc

              This is only profitable for very large operations, with access to the lowest electricity and hardware costs. For most people, it's cheaper to buy bitcoin on an exchange.

              • Jewelry use for gold is mainly storage of wealth. If you just want something pretty and durable, there are many cheaper options available. The main reason for buying gold jewelry is because it has value.

                The main reasons for buying jewelry are ornamentation and artistic and "pissing contests". Yes there is a resale or salvage value for jewelry but that is not the main reason.

                You have to have access to soil, water, nutrients, etc.

                Well, we have plenty of that.

                In theory, just like we have plenty of renewable electricity for mining in theory. A commercial tulip farm is a bit of work and expense. Now if you want to talk a potted plant or two on the window ledge or in the garden then we can talk about an ASiC or two in the garage. :-)

                And with bitcoins you need to have access to mining hardware, electricity, etc

                This is only profitable for very large operations, with access to the lowest electricity and hardware costs. For most people, it's cheaper to buy bitcoin on an exchange.

                Many thousands of home GPU miners beg to differ, and thousands

        • VaporCoin, not goldcoin.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        Gold has no acceptance ... as currency. Sure people quite like it, but that's neither here nor there as to whether gold is money.

        All the GPs points about Bitcoin apply to gold. Nobody denominates the price of goods or services for sale in grams of gold. Sure you can arrange to *trade* gold for such things, but by that argument *anything* is money because you can arrange to trade it for other stuff. At the very least prices for stuff needs to be routinely specified in a thing before you can begin to consi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      '.. then bitcoin will be gaining acceptance. Seriously, in the US and some other jurisdictions bitcoins are an asset like stocks '

      Except for the fact that there's no orderly, regulated or transparent market to trade it. Regardless of whether or not [or how] it can be exchanged for fiat currency, the markets are so fragmented that buyers or sellers aren't ever secure that the transfer has provided the best available pricing at the time of transfer.

      The same is not true with listed or transparent marke

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fred911 ( 83970 )

        additionally.. this little detail assures that the market will never have a spread that feeds specialists or marketmakers from the churn or order flow.

  • No it is another pump and dump (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:54AM (#58804510)
    You want to know when bitcoin will get acceptance ? when it is *stable* as a commodity that it can be used as exchange. If it fluctuate a lot, buying with BT means you can potentially miss on value if it rises, and accepting BT as payment means you could lose values if it drops too much. That does not happen with stable money like USD, EUR, heck even rubble is more stable. And do not get me started in the huge flaw in the time it takes to finish validating a BT exchange.

    All BT is good for at the moment is : money laundering and bypassing local laws. Oh and yes pumping and dumping to suck money out of suckers.

    • All BT is good for at the moment is : money laundering and bypassing local laws. Oh and yes pumping and dumping to suck money out of suckers.

      Don't forget: collecting ransoms from cities and companies whose computer systems are pwned by hackers.

    • You want to know when bitcoin will get acceptance ? when it is *stable* as a commodity

      No. When it's as stable as a commodity it will be an indicator that it has gained acceptance but it's not a precursor for it. Stability comes with trading volume which pegs value of individual transactions. There are many unstable financial mechanisms that have general acceptance.

      • Stability comes with trading volume which pegs value of individual transactions.

        Correct, and precisely why BTC will never be stable. In order to achieve stability, you need volumes which BTC's design is incapable of supporting. At best it might be possible to have a system which is backed by BTC, but which carries out nearly all transactions in traditional ledgers which are periodically summarized to the blockchain at (long) intervals. BTC's design simply cannot support the transaction volumes required to enable its use as a stable currency if all of the transactions have to be done

      • Stability comes with trading volume which pegs value of individual transactions. There are many unstable financial mechanisms that have general acceptance.

        No, stability for any currency comes only when the supply of that currency matches changes in the total value of assets it can be exchanged from.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. The very /. article is obviously part of the current pump & dump cycle.

  • One is medium of exchange, one is store of value. Anything else is just speculation, which can go up or down as it pleases by as much as it pleases.

    We already know from an article here a few days ago that the first use of the bitcoin is practically non-existent. Since there is no backing by any major player with money, it is also quite risky as a store of value.

    So all you' re left with is speculation. So, the answer is, as usual, "no".

  • I don't believe the reported price has anything to do with general acceptance. I suppose in order to have some value, some people have to accept that value, but that doesn't mean the general public consider it acceptable in everyday transactions. If anything the price volatility goes against it for that purpose. Beyond that, what is this price based on, individual trades, if so what market is this in? Who trusts the people that manage the market? Do we know they are reporting things properly? What price con

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is pretty clear: A currency needs stability to be usable. Hence bitcoin "surging" (probably yet another pump & dump in progress) is the very reason it is not acceptable.

  • Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is?

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

  • It's merely in the pump phase of "pump and dump."

  • $1.00 --> $0.17 --> $0.56 is still a 44% loss.

    Although it is good news for the recent wave of investors, the Wall Street / home investors, who entered at the $6,000 to $8,000 plateau as it lets them exit intact. For the more typical geek / true believer older waves of investors, the 12 month decline from $19,500 to $3,300 was just a normal retraction after the 20 month rise from $400 to $19,500. Nothing new, just "business" as usual, the same acceptance as before, for Bitcoin. :-)

  • This is simply more pump-and-dump in action. There will be no long-term gains to be had.

  • How many time are people going to fall for this nonsense? It's getting pumped, in a month or two it will be worth less than the flash drive you stored it on - again. If anyone hasn't figured it out yet, *this is what it is for*, it is intentionally without regulation or standards, so it permits or encourages every age-old scam in the book. And the same bunch of naifs fall for it every time.

  • If I say yes... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @12:20PM (#58804624)

    Will Slashdot editors stop promoting bitcoin stories? Or at least can the editors have the decency to let us know at what price they bought BTC at, $18k, $22k, so we know how much longer we have to endure BTC stories?

    • Re:If I say yes... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:34PM (#58806824)

      That is probably it. The headline is so wrong, it is staggering. The main reason bitcoin is not useful as a currency is its lack of stability.

      The only reason this crap gets pushed seems indeed that somebody at /. has a stake in the game.

  • No (Score:2)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    Headlines with questions to which the answer is "No". Bitcoin is and always has been a ponzi.

    • "Greater Fool" not "Ponzi" (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Headlines with questions to which the answer is "No". Bitcoin is and always has been a ponzi.

      No, it has always been a "Greater Fool" scheme not a "Ponzi" scheme. Very different mechanics. There is no mechanism of using recent investors to pay older investors their dividends. All investors are seeing the same "gains", the mechanism is one of exciting speculators to invest (don't "miss out") to drive the price up while letting them think they can time their exit to avoid a downturn/loss. To find a "greater fool" to sell your coins to.

  • Stupid rich bro's trying to steal money from each other = Bitcoin.

    • Stupid rich bro's trying to steal money from each other = Bitcoin.

      It's like the US crack wars of the 90's: Let them kill each other.

  • The continuing inflation in value maintains the perception of Bitcoin an a non-currency, since a stable value is a necessary part of any accepted currency.

  • Betteridge's law (Score:3)

    by jdoeii ( 468503 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @12:46PM (#58804728)

    of headlines gives the answer "no".

    https://medium.com/@straumli/n... [medium.com]

  • LOL (Score:2)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
    Yeah... you can tell it's gaining acceptance by the hockey stick shape to the graph. Normally when something rises like that exponentially, it's going to go up forever... SARCASM (in bold in case anyone misses it and later wants to sue me. NO it's not fucking gaining acceptance, it's being pumped again. When will it stop? 15k? 20k? 30k, so you can all say look look it's gonna go up forever! and go all in? Dunno, but it has no more acceptance than it had last time. This is the same small group of actors d

  • Feel free to waste your money speculating on a currency backed by nothing. If I want to gamble I'll go to the casino, or buy stocks in the stock market.

  • No (Score:2)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 )

    No

  • This is _why_ it does not gain acceptance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:32PM (#58806818)

    In order to be "accepted" as a currency, it needs to be _stable_ . A high volatility disqualifies any thing of value (or no intrinsic value at all as bitcoin) for use as a currency.

    The headline is either demented with its writer understanding absolutely nothing, or it is just another pump & dump attempt to rip of the clueless.

  • Look at the markets.

    This is just people moving money out of the failed Ethereum ICOs back in to bitcoin - no one thinks bitcoin is doing anything

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