Why Did Bitcoin Drop 25% in Just Two Weeks? (thestreet.com) 264
Bitcoin "fell dramatically in late April," writes The Street, "sinking from its mid-month high of around $64,000" to Sunday's current price of $47,600 — a drop of over 25% in less than two weeks.
So this week the Street spoke to Bobby Ong, the chief operating officer at the cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko, asking "Was that just par for the course — normal volatility — of something else?" Ong: The recent bloodbath on April 18 saw a record of approximately $9.77 billion worth of futures contracts liquidated in just 24 hours. There was already a massive amount of leverage in the market in anticipation of the Coinbase initial public offering. The excitement of having the first crypto company IPO also led bitcoin's price to hit a new all-time high of $64,804.
However, the direct listing of Coinbase also had a lukewarm reception from stock investors. More recently, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty spreading on social media due to various factors, including (rumors of) the U.S. Treasury taking legal action against certain financial institutions for money laundering, which turned out to be false information. Other than that, CNBC was recirculating news about the crypto ban in India, Turkey banning crypto payments, President Biden proposing a higher capital gains tax, and China bitcoin miners losing power.
The selloff happened during the weekend when there were thinner order books. With high leverage and thin order books, even a small decrease in price will trigger a sharp drawdown and cause a downward spiral in price.
Naturally, the market also needs to correct itself, because there were many over-leveraged traders. It is also important to note that bitcoin options expire towards the end of every month, which usually causes increased volatility in the last week of each month.
TheStreet: Do you see the decline as a chance for people to get into it at a cheaper price?
Ong: It depends on that person and their goals. The profiles of buyers today are very different before, when it was mostly libertarians. Today. it's U.S. institutions, and soon it will be governments.
So this week the Street spoke to Bobby Ong, the chief operating officer at the cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko, asking "Was that just par for the course — normal volatility — of something else?" Ong: The recent bloodbath on April 18 saw a record of approximately $9.77 billion worth of futures contracts liquidated in just 24 hours. There was already a massive amount of leverage in the market in anticipation of the Coinbase initial public offering. The excitement of having the first crypto company IPO also led bitcoin's price to hit a new all-time high of $64,804.
However, the direct listing of Coinbase also had a lukewarm reception from stock investors. More recently, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty spreading on social media due to various factors, including (rumors of) the U.S. Treasury taking legal action against certain financial institutions for money laundering, which turned out to be false information. Other than that, CNBC was recirculating news about the crypto ban in India, Turkey banning crypto payments, President Biden proposing a higher capital gains tax, and China bitcoin miners losing power.
The selloff happened during the weekend when there were thinner order books. With high leverage and thin order books, even a small decrease in price will trigger a sharp drawdown and cause a downward spiral in price.
Naturally, the market also needs to correct itself, because there were many over-leveraged traders. It is also important to note that bitcoin options expire towards the end of every month, which usually causes increased volatility in the last week of each month.
TheStreet: Do you see the decline as a chance for people to get into it at a cheaper price?
Ong: It depends on that person and their goals. The profiles of buyers today are very different before, when it was mostly libertarians. Today. it's U.S. institutions, and soon it will be governments.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Ummm.... (Score:3)
Re: Ummm.... (Score:2)
Because it has no intrinsic value...
That's completely up to the market!
In that case it value is $1 trillion.
SSL/TLS certificates, domain names, software... itâ(TM)s all just zeros and ones with no physical value you can touch of hold - yet th usefulness and value of these zeros and ones are undeniable. A commonly overheard statement in the mid 90s was why would anyone pay $50 for a domain name, or $500 for a digital certificate, they are just ephemeral bits with no value - stated by the same people who gladly forked over $100 for a copy of Windows 95.
Crypto currency is a
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is true of nearly everything.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is true of nearly everything.
Well, yes and no.
It's true that in a hypothetical universe without humans and human need, nothing would have any intrinsic value, as there would be nobody there to desire it enough to pay money for it.
However, we live in a world with actual people, and in that context we have to recognize that biology dictates that those people have and will continue to have standard needs and desires, and will be willing (to varying extents) to pay money to have those needs and desires fulfilled.
The concept of intrinsic value, then, is related to how likely it is that people will generally want or need a particular item and be willing to pay for it.
Food, water, shelter, medicine? People will die without these things, so the likelihood is that no matter what time or place you visit, people will be willing to pay for them -- they have intrinsic value.
A particular movie or piece of music? It might be quite valuable in the culture where it was produced and has relevance, but its value will likely fade over time as fashions and tastes shift. It has intrinsic value, but less of it than a universally-required staple would.
A mathematical abstraction like BitCoin? It has value as long as BitCoin is seen by the public as a way to make or store value; but that is only a culture's state-of-mind, and is only valid until people decide otherwise. If the world decides tomorrow that BitCoins are no longer worth anything, they won't be; you won't be able to sell them and you won't be able to eat them or use them for kindling or anything other purpose. Twenty years ago, owning BitCoins would have been unsalable, and twenty years from now, they might be unsalable again. BitCoin has value (for now), but it's not intrinsic.
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From a practical perspective, we all need to breathe. From an economics perspective, air has zero intrinsic value because no one will pay for it.
That may change if something catastrophic happens, but such an event is unlikely.
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I'd suggest reading up on current conditions in India and how much demand there is for air, or rather oxygen, the best part of air.
Earlier in the year, air, or the oxygen in it, was going for something like a thousand dollars for a few litres (forget the actual number) in parts of Brazil.
For most there is a huge surplus of air, so low price, but within minutes of no air, people will pay everything they have for some.
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Earlier in the year, air, or the oxygen in it, was going for something like a thousand dollars for a few litres (forget the actual number) in parts of Brazil.
Yeah, and you can buy CO2 in canisters, but you, my friend, have just set up a strawman instead of attacking my main point.
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From a practical perspective, we all need to breathe. From an economics perspective, air has zero intrinsic value because no one will pay for it.
This is nonsense.
If you found yourself locked in a room with a little quarter slot directly below a notice that said "Please deposit 25 cents to continue breathing", you my friend, would pay.
The fact is, air is so abundant that there's no real way to corner that market, but it has quite a bit of intrinsic value.
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Except it isn't. Value of before bitcoin is still tied to something intrinsic. For example the good ol' fiat dollar. It's as conceptual as bitcoin. Except that it is the legally recognised way of clearing debt with the government, which runs a central bank that has accumulated debt which people have used to invest in very physical real world things.
It's a few degrees removed, but the dollar still has a very real link to intrinsic value. Bitcoin on the other hand is purely speculative. If the price crashes a
Re: Ummm.... (Score:2)
If it's money it has one job. hold a constant value.
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Because fiat currencies totally do that, right? Right???
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Because it has no intrinsic value and it's price is completely speculative?
The same is true of any fiat currency currently, when money supplies have been boosted arbitrarily with around a 25% boost of the entire money supply in the past year or so [stlouisfed.org] - that's for the U.S. but all major currencies are doing the same thing. How doe s debt that is over 100% [spglobal.com] of GDP grab ya?
In fact fiat is far more unstable (as you shall soon see) because there is no limit; with Bitcoin there is a limited supply.
That's completely
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> A major risk is that at some point the government itself will simply say "this currency is now worth nothing" Which the larger the debt they have, the larger incentive they have to do it.
Every government with such a problem attempts just the opposite as the people decide the currency is worth little. But inflation is likely.
The monetary policy is designed intentionally to discourage people from holding on to plain government money (aka 'fiat' but all crypto is just as much 'fiat' as any government mon
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That statement does nothing to explain why its speculative value was 33% more two weeks ago than it is now. Just like practically all the replies below.
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Is this a trick question? Because it has no intrinsic value and it's price is completely speculative?
Is it worth $0.0000001?
Is it worth $100000000?
That's completely up to the market!
Actually, it is worth exactly nothing. The question is how much money people are willing to waste on it.
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How would you define "worth" except by what somebody is willing to pay for it?
Yes, it's a trick question. But it has an answer. (Score:2)
Is this [Why Did Bitcoin Drop 25% in Just Two Weeks?] a trick question? [how much it's worth is] completely up to the market!
Yes, it's a trick question. Because how much ANY asset is worth is completely up to the market.
The value of any asset is ONLY what someone RIGHT THEN is willing to pay for it and someone else is willing to sell it for. Those decisions MAY have some relation to some more general desirability or utility of the asset (an "underlying value"). But the only thing that matters is the two
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Because it has no intrinsic value and it's price is completely speculative?
Unlike this U.S. penny that still buys a loaf of bread like it did in 1821.
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Actually, an 1821 US 1 cent will buy a lot more than one loaf of bread.
https://www.allcoinvalues.com/... [allcoinvalues.com]
The nonsense mantra of "intrinsic value" (Score:2)
Nothing has intrinsic value.
Everything can have intrinsic value.
It is always a matter of context and situation.
The value of Bitcoin lies in what you can do with it, and how its supply is limited. In that, it is not really much different from gold.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sure there's a mathematician or computer scientist working on a therotical attack on blockchain as we speak. It'll be only a matter of weeks once it's published before some Eastern-European hackers steal all the bitcoin, or erase the block chain or whatever the point of failure turns out to be.
But that day will most definitely come and bitcoin's value is going to be $0
Very clever. So How much did you make? (Score:3, Insightful)
My dumb neighbor don't know nothing about intrinsic value. But he has an instinct for mob psychology and made about $10,000 by following the trend.
Of course the Bit Coins have value, but it is based on psychology and not economics. And since when is economics particularly rational anyway.
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I agree that people with savings need to protect themselves from shitty fiat currencies that some governments are using to inflate away their debt.
High inflation rates also reduce the tax income. Most taxes are paid in arrears, so a high inflation hurts tax income.
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The only thing that determines the value of fiat money is guns, tanks, destroyers, nuclear weapons etc. other than that itâ(TM)s the same as crypto.
Wrong. The fact that you can pay taxes with fiat money (in countries where they are legal tender) gives them intrinsic value. Fiat currencies are backed by tax obligations.
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Guess what, good old hard cash also crashes to zero...
No it doesn't. Good hard cash gets forced to zero through monetary policy and actions which impact its very real intrinsic value. Next time read your own link, the hint is in the 3rd sentence.
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Money is an abstraction over human relationships. Also maybe to a small degree, if you're feeling adventurous, our relationship to the natural world.
The relationships are what's real. Money is just an attempt to capture and exert control on what goes on in them.
The abstraction leaks badly.
Programmers know how fun that is, especially when some of your colleagues are in denial that there's a lower layer at all (like the people imagining that gold or "hard cash" has intrinsic value).
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If the original bitcoin has no value, then why would forking it be a problem?
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So it's basically the same as the original, then?
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Informative)
What intrinsic value do the pieces of paper in your wallet have?
Real money is legally required to be accepted as payment on previously established debts. It will always have value for that purpose, because there’s always debt. Nobody has any legal obligation to accept your Bitcoin.
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What intrinsic value do the pieces of paper in your wallet have?
Real money is legally required to be accepted as payment on previously established debts. It will always have value for that purpose, because there's always debt.
It's quite a bit deeper than that.
Fiat currencies are not only legally required to be accepted as payment for debts, they're actually backed by debt, in that the way that money (e.g. dollars) is created is by creating a balancing debt. The most common example of this is bank lending. When you borrow $100k from a bank to buy a house, they don't lend you $100k that other people deposited in the bank, they lend you $10k that other people deposited and $90k that they created. That $90k comes into existence at
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Gold is a material that is useful for things other than money.
Paper is a material that is useful for things other than money.
Bitcoin has no such intrinsic value.
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Gold is a material that is useful for things other than money.
Paper is a material that is useful for things other than money.
Bitcoin has no such intrinsic value.
The money in my bank account isn't gold or paper.
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Oh, so if you want that money back they can just hand you a sack of chickens or back a truck of manure up to your house and dump it off? Or print off the 1s and 0s and hand them to you?
Or maybe, just maybe, your bank is required to pay you in paper money, which thus has a real value, unlike bitcoin. Nobody is required to exchange your bitcoins for anything. They do so as long as it's advantageous for them to do so.
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You may have missed the subtle point. The money isn't backed by gold or paper.
Money is backed by the government regulating what money is. Government regulations are what stops the bank giving me a bag of chickens.
The ones and zeroes in the bank's database have no more intrinsic value then the ones and zeroes in some distributed blockchain. The ones and zeroes in the bank database have the backing of the government, that's what makes them superior.
(Or not to a bitcoin zealot.) Nothing intrinsic necessary.
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No it's not. The money in your bank is backed by a central bank policy tied directly to the national economy. That's its intrinsic value.
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The ones and zeroes in the bank database have no intrinsic value. Government policy gives them all their value.
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Post as AC, but link to your own twitter account?
That government policy gives money all its value, doesn't mean its all the value there is.
That government policy gives money all its value, doesn't mean there's a policy government can pick that makes everyone rich.
Even those who think government can and should pick a policy making everyone rich, don't think it's a simple monetary policy.
(Well, except maybe the Social Credit weirdos).
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Some will be better or worse than others. Did you really not know that, and think all currencies were worth the same?
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Bitcoin is a very tamper-proof data storage system. It can be used to store transactions, but it can store other data, and once entered, the data is there to stay and will last as long as a single copy of the blockchain exists, a single bitcoin client is active. Such storage is useful for things other than money.
The fact that this storage is used as carrier of fiat value doesn't differ any from use of gold or paper as carrier of fiat value.
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Gold wasn't money. Gold was loot, and a status object (because it showed you could maybe loot and definitively resist other's looting - peacock feathers for the powerful).
Most people sensibly went through their lives without coming in contact with much of it, if any.
Re: Ummm.... (Score:2)
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
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Goods and services can be exchanged for goods and services. Your point being...?
As long as I have something you want and you have something I want and we agree on the exchange it won't matter if it's money, bitcoin, pixie dust or something else.
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This may be the most informative and interesting AC comment I've ever read here.
Thank you. Sorry I don't have mod points today.
Get some, or go to prison (Score:2)
> What intrinsic value do the pieces of paper in your wallet have?
Ultimately, if you don't get some dollars to pay your taxes with, they'll *put you in prison*. That pretty much ensures that there will always be a demand for dollars.
Given that everyone wants dollars to avoid prison, plus it's a stable store of value and medium of exchange, plus it's convenient to do transactions with, plus there's a law that says you can use it to pay off any debt, it ends up being pretty darn good currency.
I listed off
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone in the stock market knows there's risk associated with it and investing in most stocks includes some speculation - at least betting that the books are not cooked or that the whole thing is complete not a scam [cnbc.com] like Hometown International which was valued at more than $100M in spite of its only asset being a single deli that did just $35K in sales over a two year period.
However, shares in a company correspond to ownership in a real, concrete entity -- generally possessing assets such as real estate, patents, equipment, brand value, anticipated future profit stream etc. Of course it is true, just as it is true if you own a mom-and-pop auto repair shop, that a business you own stock in may go bankrupt because their business model is flawed (perhaps demand for mechanical calculators plunged when electronic ones became available and the company didn't foresee the shift and didn't or couldn't become competitive in the electronic calculator market) but that's a risk each investor should be evaluating for themselves. Of course the price of many/most stocks will oscillate along with the economy but that's because of real market factors such as weaker players may not survive a recession so get hit badly and even strong players may see a substantial decline in profits or even start losing money which many impair their ability to expand to take advantage of the demand rebound after the recession is over.
On the other hand, there is nothing of concrete value behind Bitcoin.
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Even if you have non voting shares you still are entitled to assets. If you buy 10% of the shares in a company with $1m of gold then if the company was purchased you would be entitled to 10% of the sale price assuming they had no liabilities.
This has happened to me a few times. Not Gold but the patents and factories etc were acquired and I had cold hard cash deposited in my account relative to my shares.
I also own some dividend stocks which pretty much pass 100% of their profits out as dividends and the sto
Generally speaking (Score:4, Interesting)
Bitcoin drops because the whales are cycling the fleecing machine.
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An uncharacteristic outburst of common sense (Score:2)
n/t
Sudden outbreak of common sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just speculating, but perhaps more holders than usual just realised that something is fishy about the whole premise of "investing" in Bitcoin, and wanted out - converting their Bitcoin to actual currency. And maybe others decided that it is about time to get out soon before it crashes.
How did you think that cryptocurrency exchanges would be able to afford real money? What usually happens when supply is higher than demand?
Nothing can be hyped forever - to expect that would be madness.
Looking over time (Score:4)
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It's the "SEE? I TOLD YOU SO!" club.
The same people who forecast stuff that never happens and keep saying "YOU JUST WAIT".
The same people that insist any investment is gambling and don't understand inflation.
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Everyone else is just looking at the volatility and commenting on that volatility. The price means nothing if you didn't get in early, and you aren't looking to bail out.
Coinbase had a market cap of $61B?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's put that into context.
Coinbase
1,249 employees
revenue $1.14B
Market cap $61B
BP
70,000 employees
revenue $183.5B
Market cap $59B
Apparently the multinational oil company with $183.5B of annual revenue is worth less than a website where you can buy Bitcoin.
Re:Coinbase had a market cap of $61B?! (Score:5, Insightful)
but oil will be worth something for decades, if only because 15 percent of it is used for lubricants, plastics, etc.
meanwhile gambling game tokens worth nothing can go to zero value.
cryptocurrency (not really currency nor money, fails the tests of those) is merely Tulip Mania, 21st century version.
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Well if you assume the value of bitcoin is going to go infinitely up, there's no amount too large for anything bitcoin-related
May point to truth behind the rumors (Score:5, Informative)
Start here [twitter.com] and read a bunch of the tweets above it from that guy. He says there was particular activity back to back in BTC, CXC and USDT that looks like someone trying to hide assets at scale. So the rumors about the US Treasury starting to crackdown hard on tax evaders and money launderers who use crypto may be true.
This is why smart money is moving into physical assets. Notice that no one in the media is really asking why Bill Gates bought around a quarter million acres of prime farm land instead of more stonks. It's not a hobby, I can tel you that much. Going to bet that Gates, Musk, Ellison, Dimon and most of their peers have been buying precious metals, real estate with productive value and other physical goods while doing the "yay cryptonks, yay stonks...." cheerleading.
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Just like Game Stop (Score:2)
You buy in at a certain price, maybe even before it had any actual value.
When you reach a certain value, determined by you, you sell it.
The price you select is meaningless, it's what you're comfortable with.
Sane people do this, and aren't crying because "Bitcoin $200000" is probably not going to happen anytime soon.
Now if you're really smart, you'll figure out if there is going to be a floor, and put a percentage of your profits back in. (Not as true regarding pump and dump schemes like Game Stop)
You'll alm
Pump and dump payout time. (Score:5, Insightful)
The best description of cryptocurrency is a greater fool bubble.
The most charitable view of cryptocurrency unregulated gambling.
Just shy of 10% of all exchanges have been hacked at least once.
80% of all icos are scams right out of the gate.
~76% of the hashing is controlled by a totalitarian state with no compunction against ruthless controls over their economy see Jack Ma IPO.
Doublespending has already happened a few times after innumerable claims of it being 'impossible'.
It is not based on anything real, there is no actual scarcity, there is in fact an infinite number of completely unregulated 'coins'.
Cost per transaction makes it useless in practice.
Time per transaction makes it useless in practice.
Having zero regulation or oversight, all of the above again relies on the goodwill of anyone in any position at any stage of the project having no uncontrolled/unrestricted self interest, malicious intent or just naked greed (checkout what happened in Turkey recently).
Retreated to support price (Score:3)
Most of TA is BS but the support price trend line is usually approximately correct. Everybody knew BTC was in a hype bubble. The bets were how big the bubble would inflate.
How does bitcoin die? (Score:4, Interesting)
What happens when a critical mass of the hash rate moves over to something like Etherium because they can make more money doing that work?
All of the easy bitcoins have been mined already the last ~12% of bitcoin are predicted to take another ~100 years to mine, what/when is the threshold where most of the miners migrate to some other 'coin' that will pay off much sooner?
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Ethereum is moving to a proof-of-stake scheme which will make mining pretty much useless.
We'll see the market flood with graphics card soon.
And no, these cards aren't really 'busted'. Most large-scale operations take care of these cards, undervolt and underclock them, because the ROI is pretty long on them.
If you were to buy a graphics card to mine ETH today, you'll mine enough with it to pay for it in one year.
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hat happens when a critical mass of the hash rate moves over to something like Etherium because they can make more money doing that work?
Once enough people move to a different coin, then suddenly the reward for being a bitcoin miner will increase.
Because it's a delusion! (Score:2)
You simply do not want to accept that it is a delusion.
And that is why you're still confused and looking for an explanation (that will allow you to keep it, so you don't have to feel like a moron).
But really, anyone can fall for something, no? We are not perfect! Nobody fair expects you to be perfect!
All we do, is expect you to accept reality, not make things up, not ignore things, and hence not fall into a religion.
Like falling not being deadly, while hitting the ground is,
there is no shame in making a mis
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You simply do not want to accept that it is a delusion.
Pretty much, yes. For anybody but a few large players this is a negative sum game. Its only purpose is to redistribute money from those that have not a lot to those that already have plenty. And it works. It does massive damage on the way (people getting bankrupted, electricity wastes, hardware used for no positive outcome, etc.), but the few large players do not care, because they are scum.
Somebody cashed out and made some money (Score:2)
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Only a good game of all of the following is true:
a) You have lots of money you do not need (small time player only win by accident in this game)
b) You are mentally defective and want even more money
c) You are an immoral waste of oxygen and do not mind bankrupting people gambling it with money they cannot afford to lose
bitcoin is inveted bs (Score:2)
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Me? Yes thanks. I bought $100 worth of it 2 years ago and now I have $600 worth of it.
Because I'm not a fucking delusional imbecile that believes that "if the power grid goes down I'll use cash". If the power grid goes down the whole society falls apart, you numbnuts. Your dollars will be worth nothing.
How can you be so stupid?
Wait, are you a prepper? Do you have a bunker? Do you think if SHTF you'll stay in there for a few months and then come out and go to McDonald's for a burger?
Crashes to (Score:2)
$48,000. Same as it was on March 6th.
Because of opportunity costs, mostly. (Score:2)
BTC has mostly failed as a transactional currency. What it has managed to do is create something more like digital gold. Gold is somewhat industrial, but mostly financial. Holders of gold weigh their purchase against their belief that other forms of money are likely to devalue. Gold and BTC don't return interest on their own, and thus may have similar dynamics in the market when weighed against bond yields and expectations regarding the purchasing power of currency. The BTC chart certainly has a gold k
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I think the "hoarding like gold" idea is an achilles heel of Bitcoin. There is real value provided by Bitcoin, and that is related to the transaction volume serviced by the network. If the network activity goes stagnant, does the value of Bitcoin go down? Probably, yes. This is not a kind of "gold-like" substitute that can survive stagnancy. If people simply hold Bitcoin rather than move it around, Gresham's Law will take hold and the Bitcoin price will face relentless downward pressure. In the long r
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I think the solution to the Bitcoin hoarding problem is in the altcoins. A lot of them are focusing on the transaction cost problems. That focus brings other problems, but somebody may eventually come upon a solution that clearly wins, or perhaps we will have a hand full of big cryptos that take different approaches and have different uses.
I don't see BTC going to zero based on its own dynamics. The thing about Gresham's law is that it drives good money *out of circulation*, not out of existence. The on
Because it is a bubble? (Score:2)
In fact, it is _less_ than hot air and has less worth than even the worst junk-bonds available, because it is worth exactly nothing. So its value is purely in the imagination of the fools and greater fools that try to get rich with it and hence is exceptionally volatile.
Next dumb question?
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Next dumb question?
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? Allen Ginsberg
What we're seeing is inflation in cryptocurrency. (Score:2)
Yes. Inflation.
The big selling point of Bitcoin, or any other single cryptocurrency whose valuation is not tied to a fiat, is tha the money supply is algorithmically limited. But I keep encountering crypto "investors" who tell me that "Because I missed the boat on Bitcoin, and now it's around $60,000 per unit, I'm buying Etherium | Dogecoin | Nakamoto-knows-what instead. I'm getting in on the ground floor!" Even though any single crypto has a fixed supply, the crypto market as a whole is now Zimbabwe level
Democrats are in charge (Score:2)
Also there's talk of regulating crypto (which would mean a lot less money laundering and therefore a lot less value for it).
Finally there's talk of raising capital gains taxes, whi
Please illuminate me (Score:2)
What has trading bitcoin got to do with options trading?
Forget bitcoin (Score:2)
What actually happened (Score:3)
Hutubi county, Xinjiang, China. Heavy rainfall, floods. Local coal mine floods 11.4.2021. 21 miners trapped. Coal supply in the region disrupted to local power plant supplying this and two neighbouring counties with electrical power.
And total hash rate of bitcoin network goes down by about a third.
This reminds a lot of investors that not only is bitcoin volatile, but control over transactions is also highly centralized in specific miners' hands (including regionally). Price goes down as some of them divest.
Money Laundering (Score:3)
Re:Today. it's U.S. institutions, (Score:5, Insightful)
"and soon it will be governments" - says "Bobby Ong, the chief operating officer at the cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko,"
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Trust me, the scam can go on a little longer, it's still time for you to jump in! Today. it's U.S. institutions, and soon it will be governments! The suckers of last resort!
That can't go wrong, can it?
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it generates too much heat (the other greenhouse "gas")
You're worried about heat from power plants causing global warming?
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The Earth has a truly impressive radiative capacity.
It takes a seriously impressive energy density (and a whole shit ton of CO2), across an entire face of the planet to keep this rock from turning into a ball of ice very quickly.
Mankind is incapable (at this juncture) of significantly altering the world climate by way of direct heat production.
Re: (Score:3)
>> and soon it will be governments.
> That's too bad. It's a criminal waste of valuable resources, and it generates too much heat (the other greenhouse "gas
You describe governments well.
Re: (Score:2)
and it generates too much heat (the other greenhouse "gas")
Excess heat dissipates very, very, *very*, quickly. So does excess water vapor caused by increased heat.
In terms of long term risk, only CO2 really matters.
Re: (Score:2)
Ever notice how you wake up every day and you’re not dead yet? I guess this death thing must be fake news, eh?
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No, Bitcoin isn't going up in value all the time, but ever notice that it always climbs in value?
Well, no. This article seems to be about it going down by 25%.
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Bitcoin is their e-meter. We shouldn't pick on it, it just riles them up.
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Going to have to cut this one off at the pass. Bitcoin is not an anonymous currency. In fact, believing it is so means giving potential prosecutors 100% iron clad evidence to convict with. Anything shady, and one's coins can be flagged as tainted... and if the coins are tumbled, all coins in that transaction could be marked tainted, or tainted for "x" amount of transactions. Tainted coins won't be tradable, so trying to exchange them for another currency isn't going to work with most exchanges.
Even then
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why people say Bitcoins are anonymous. They are less anonymous than credit cards, because everyone can see the blockchain.
Because while I can see a transaction id and I can see that it went from some source address to some destination address I can't see who owns the source or destination wallets, how do you work out who owns a wallet?