Ether Soars Above $1,000 As Bitcoin Sets Another Record (arstechnica.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ether, the native currency of the Ethereum network and the second most valuable cryptocurrency, has soared above $1,000 for the first time since 2018. The rise is part of a broad cryptocurrency boom inspired by the continued rise in bitcoin's price. Last month, bitcoin rose above $20,000, smashing its previous all-time record of around $19,500. Since then, it has continued to rise, breaking above $30,000 in recent days. As I write this, one bitcoin is worth around $31,000.
Cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall together. So it's not surprising that other virtual currencies are also on the rise. Ether has seen dramatic gains over the last year. At the start of 2020, one ether was worth around $140. The price rose to around $600 in late November, the same month bitcoin started flirting with a new record. In the last few days, ether has been on a tear, rising from $600 on Christmas Day to more than $1,000 today. It isn't just ether. Litecoin, one of the oldest "altcoins," has seen its value triple over the last three months to $150. Bitcoin Cash, a variant of bitcoin that's optimized for high transaction volumes, has nearly doubled over the same period and is now worth $400. Polkadot and Tether have also seen continued growth in recent months.
The one exception is XRP, the currency of the Ripple network. "Just before Christmas, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged two Ripple executives with selling unregistered securities," reports Ars. "The announcement has caused some US cryptocurrency exchanges to stop offering trades in XRP. XRP has lost two-thirds of its value since a November peak." Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., also suspended trading in XRP.
Cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall together. So it's not surprising that other virtual currencies are also on the rise. Ether has seen dramatic gains over the last year. At the start of 2020, one ether was worth around $140. The price rose to around $600 in late November, the same month bitcoin started flirting with a new record. In the last few days, ether has been on a tear, rising from $600 on Christmas Day to more than $1,000 today. It isn't just ether. Litecoin, one of the oldest "altcoins," has seen its value triple over the last three months to $150. Bitcoin Cash, a variant of bitcoin that's optimized for high transaction volumes, has nearly doubled over the same period and is now worth $400. Polkadot and Tether have also seen continued growth in recent months.
The one exception is XRP, the currency of the Ripple network. "Just before Christmas, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged two Ripple executives with selling unregistered securities," reports Ars. "The announcement has caused some US cryptocurrency exchanges to stop offering trades in XRP. XRP has lost two-thirds of its value since a November peak." Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., also suspended trading in XRP.
In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
Trading cards from the 1960's baseball season are also constantly at record levels. Same with vintage comics.
Enthusiast investment markets function to raise values of mostly-fixed quantity sets of items.
"Mining" is a cool gimmick for these coin systems - but it is all literally manufactured scarcity to me.
Then again - all currency is largely managed agreements between people - I'm just saying that these 'currencies' aren't really traded among a fully representative sample of human beings.
Fascinating as a traded thing with value - but perhaps a much too large part of technology news for what it is, compared to what other technologies do over time.
Ryan Fenton
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https://twitter.com/udiWerthei... [twitter.com]
I don’t like the use of the word “scam” here, but this is very true The reason that people build on ETH isn’t “the technology”, it’s because of quick access to people who are highly susceptible to being separated from their money
(That’s a big selling point though!)
#Etherium accomplishes something that Liquid, RGB and other alternatives can never match. It self-select
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The amount of stupid on slashdot is amazing. Crypto has been around for 12 years. TWELVE YEARS. Near 0 downtime for BTC and ETH. ETH has gone from 25 cents to $1400. Yes it's current at $1000 but will likely go way beyond $7K during this bull cycle.
Do you idiots think you're funny trolling crypto? It's weeks away from being a TRILLION DOLLAR MARKET. You know who's an idiot? Those who choose to remain ignorant about crypto.
Enjoy staying poor.
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I agree completely... You have a ton of people acting like you can somehow lose $100k by investing $1000 in crypto.. And you have a financial industry heavily invested in basically 'anything but crypto' acting like rules and regulations prohibit the investment in crypto. Then you have the haters that are just mad they ignored it so long..
Crypto is amazing technology.. and each 'coin' is a new protocol that introduces new features in that technology.. And, no 'one coin to rule them all' even needs to exist..
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Another day, another cryptocurrency push/story (Score:4, Informative)
Next to badly formatted unicode text, this seems to be becoming a permanent fixture on Slashdot now.
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It becomes a thing whenever there is major news. usually record highs or lows. There are record highs so there are stories about it. It is the biggest thing going on in the world right now. And yes, since entire (small) nations are turning to cryptocurrency as well as repressed segments in many high controlled countries (China, US, etc) I do mean the world.
I now buy my Monopoly money (Score:3)
by buying actual Monopoly game box sets, taking out the money and throwing the box away. It's cheaper than buying cryptocurrency.
"Cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall together" (Score:3)
Cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall together
Can't wait to see them crash together.
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Only BTC matters! (Score:1)
Cryptocurrency is an absurd terminology, it mixes something real and useful: Bitcoin with scams: (ETH, XRP...)
Cryptocurrencies = Digital Gold (BTC) + Digital pyrite (ETH, XRP...)
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Which is worse? The old geeks that are sour grapes or the shills hyping one particular token or another? They're both awful in their own way.
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You could sell the tulip futures just fine while prices were going up, there weren't enough end users willing to pay for it ... but you could sell them just fine to incoming speculators.
Bitcoin/Ethereum transaction costs around 10 dollar, Lightning a predictable failure due to liquidity cost and horrible usability.
You can sell Bitcoin/Ethereum just fine, there are no end users to use them as actual currency other than malware makers ... but you can sell them just fine to incoming speculators.
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It has its problems, but not the one you are claiming. Throughput and fees suffer most when panic selling is abound.
Boogie down (Score:3)
I've been pretty careful about ignoring my crypto portfolio. I put some bucks in early on and then again last year on my daughter's advice, and I almost never look at Coinbase to see where it's at. I just assume it's all going to disappear in a puff of smoke. But I just looked today and immediately transferred a couple thousand bucks to my bank so I can go buy myself a gold-top Les Paul Deluxe Player Plus edition (which I have long wanted), and that barely makes a dent in how much the portfolio has increased just since yesterday.
Sincere thanks to all you crazy crypto-bros who've been pumping up the price. Today is my real Christmas, thanks to you. I take back all the times I made fun of you.
Re: Boogie down (Score:1)
I take back all the times I made fun of you.
Iâ(TM)m adding to them.
Logical result (Score:1)
People say the bubble will pop, if that is the case then where is all of this money going to go?
A Certain Pebble Yeet Webcomic On Bitcoin (Score:2)
You know, there's a nasty little "rock thrower" out there that makes pretty nasty webcomics that are extremely popular with racists, fascists and other assorted scum.
But I really can't find fault with this comic. [imgur.com]
It's like my father used to say about real estate?
It goes up, and sometimes goes down, but unless it's got a toxic waste dump on it, it never goes lower than when you first bought it.
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Your father neglected to correct for inflation, as most people do, hey?
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Lots of properties now are worth much less than in that particular moment.
This is not to say that real estate is a bad investment it's just the particular statement that "it never goes lower than when you first bought it".
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LOL! I think that would fall under the "toxic waste dump" clause, but yes, good point.
Real questions (Score:2)
What happens when it's no longer cost effective to process transactions for whatever flavor of crypto you're into?
I'm not 100% hip to the way it works, but my limited understanding is:
Mining is processing transactions on the blockchain, and results in an eventual "reward" which is in theory supposed to offset the real cost of processing said transactions. (is this right?)
Eventually, the transaction processing will no longer be subsidized by the miners, as the cost to reward ratio will go all out of whack..
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Transaction fees go through the roof and serve as a crash-accelerator.
Nope, BTC is _not_ "worth" 31k (Score:2)
That is the asking price some. Whether you can actually sell at this price and how horrendous a transaction fee you will have to pay is what matters.
Privacy coins delisted (Score:2)
Bitcoin was once touted as enabling anonymous transactions. As anyone technical knows, this is not really true. Meanwhile, two side notes to the current bull market:
- Coins that provide some degree of privacy (like Monero) were recently delisted from at least one of the cryptocurrency exchanges, apparently under pressure from governments.
- There is talk of exchanges only accepted "untainted" Bitcoins, and having to prove that your coins are "untainted".
Both of which make one think that governmental regulato