Bitcoin, Dogecoin See Big Drops After China Reiterates Ban On Crypto Services (cnet.com) 185
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and seemingly every cryptocurrency out there took a big hit Wednesday following the news of China reconfirming its criticism of the crypto service. This appeared to contribute to a sell-off across the board and is even affecting the stock market. CNET reports: The China Internet Finance Association said it will not allow the country's financial institutions to partake in any business related to cryptocurrency due to the volatile nature of the digital coins, according to a Chinese media report Tuesday that was spotted earlier by Coindesk. This move isn't new. China took a similar stance back in 2017, which also resulted in a massive Bitcoin selloff.
Bitcoin's price dropped sharply Wednesday morning to a low of just below $32,000. It has since rebounded to $37,000, according to Coindesk, which still makes it a loss of 12% for the day. Ethererum and Dogecoin also saw drops at about the same time and are down 12% and 13% respectively.
Bitcoin's price dropped sharply Wednesday morning to a low of just below $32,000. It has since rebounded to $37,000, according to Coindesk, which still makes it a loss of 12% for the day. Ethererum and Dogecoin also saw drops at about the same time and are down 12% and 13% respectively.
This is terrible (Score:5, Funny)
I am ruined! I bought at the peak when the media was hyping these crypto currencies. And now it's crashing, it's almost like buying at peak demand is completely pointless.
Re:This is terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
Joking aside, if your high-risk investment bankrupts you, then you shouldn't make high-risk investments to begin with. High-risk investments are for those with a big margin of error (= "rich").
Re: This is terrible (Score:2)
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It is all down to maths. It's called doubling, when bitcoin started 1 cent went to 2 cents and wow it doubled in value. The problem is the more that it does it, the more it has to increase to double, so worth a dollar, now it needs to add a dollar to double. On and on it goes, worth $10,000 dollars and now it needs to increase by $10,000 dollars, can you see the problem yet. The illusion of massive profits, poof, gone. Doubling on real world currencies becomes impossible, NO, bitcoin will not become worth m
Re: This is terrible (Score:3)
It is even worse than that all coins are designed as deflationary. Meaning they lose money if not actively being pumped up.
Scams are the only thing good for non pegged cryptocoins.
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Bitcoin Maximalists ARE common con-artists.
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. . . no? I just abhor stupidity.
Re: This is terrible (Score:2)
The expectation is average greedy joes again. I'm starting to hear (non-crypto) people talking about buying in now that it just went through a correction.
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On the plus side there might be a flood of used GPUs onto the market now.
Re: This is terrible (Score:2)
Re: This is terrible (Score:2)
Yeah, I hope the American fund managers who have bought into BTC have balls of steel. I could see some of them being asked to answer a lot of questions right now.
Boomers gonna rage (Score:1)
So yet another cryptocurrency story, and this one again mentions something else than bitcoin, so you know all the bitcoin boomers are going to get into a blind rage at the mere mention of any altcoins - Pyrite Pete probably will have posted half a dozen "Bitcoin RULEZ!" posts by the time I finish this.
But even if they haven't posted anything yet, it's really easy to trigger them (just watch the responses after this post), with some simple facts:
According to Coindesk right now:
Bitcoin YTD returns: 36.01%
So much for non-fiat currency... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So much for non-fiat currency... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, supply is now limited by power or storage, so now its a race to the bottom of stupidity.
Re: So much for non-fiat currency... (Score:1)
OK, so to what do you attribute the volatility.
As far as I can see, the Chinese have a valid point and are sensible for not allowing it to destabilise their economy. Equally, the crypto currency investors are idiotic if they thought the Chinese had changed their minds. The volatility hasn't changed, so why did they think the Chinese would have? I presume that some investors thought that, else why have they tanked at the Chinese repeating their position?
So, how can the volatility be changed?
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and if that doesnt convince you to buy bitcoin, i don't know what will! /s
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Only proteins and amino acids, and sex have intrinsic value, everything else is fluff
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Yup.
Fiat currencies: 1 per country, so about 200 worldwide.
Cryptocurrencies: 10k (up from 1k about 1 year ago).
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So you have a hang up about boomer hang ups.
I want my 10 seconds back.
Re: Boomers gonna rage (Score:2)
Anyone who's been into BTC for a full cycle or more recognizes other currencies experience even higher volatility, but lose to BTC on any longer timeframe. If you wanna get in on the churn, then sure, buy a dozen hot shitcoins. Ultimately BTC is the reserve currency for the vast majority of the altcoin economy. Altcoin trading just leads to BTC rising. It's all good shit.
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I got bit by a doge.
They're right (Score:4, Insightful)
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What you makes you think cryptocurrency co's won't end up the same way? Deep pockets = deep lobbying.
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get out now! will drop after the USA does same (Score:3, Informative)
get out now! will drop agin after the USA does same things.
And do you really want to have an DEA raid happen to you for just holding some bitcoin.
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The DEA is who raids you after you invariably have to spend your coins on drugs.
I don't think you'll see a DEA raid (Score:2)
So if/when Bitcoin crashes... (Score:1)
Criminals panhandling on street corners?
Sudden abundance of energy?
Stock markets affected?
I'm honestly curious what'll happen when however many billions disappear.
Re:So if/when Bitcoin crashes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm honestly curious what'll happen when however many make believe billions disappear.
There, FTFY.
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Re:So if/when Bitcoin crashes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely false, no money in there at all, and bitcoin can go to zero without a cent in the world disappearing. Energy wasted to crunch numbers to make game/gambling tokens is all that happened. Money from gamblers buying these gambling tokens didn't disappear into black hole but went into someone's pocket, and neither does money magically appear from anywhere inside bitcoin infrastructure when someone cashes out, that is also from someone else's pocket.
Bitcoin is not money. Just a game point.
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I agree that most cryptos have no real-world utility as currencies or stores of value. That said, there's clearly an ongoing demand for them. People have been saying for 10+ years that Bitcoin is worthless. However, Bitcoins price time and time again proves that not to be the case.
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Price curve of last month seems to indicate the opposite. The game token is not as popular.
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Your brain misfires and spews bad logic. A house is useful without being sold. A gaming and gambling token such as bitcoin is not. The money used to buy a house and the house are both assets. Bitcoin has no use and no utility, that is the economic analysis of bitcoin.
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Your brain misfires and spews bad logic. A house is useful without being sold. A gaming and gambling token such as bitcoin is not. The money used to buy a house and the house are both assets. Bitcoin has no use and no utility, that is the economic analysis of bitcoin.
Bitcoin has plenty of uses, primarily as a medium of trade.
However cryptocurrencies have nothing supporting them, so potentially can lose all of their value within seconds. The basis for a bitcoin's value is that someone, at some point in the future may exchange a given value for it. In this way they are less a currency and more a lottery ticket. The entire value of cryptocurrencies is based on artificial scarcity, beyond that there is no guarantee of value.
Fiat currencies at least have backing, a 10 NZD no
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A bitcoin merely existing has zero use. A house or apple existing has a use. That's a key difference between bitcoin as "asset" but not sold, and the AC fails to see it.
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Same could be said of almost any asset. "House burns down, oh well, nothing of value was lost."
That isn't true. If you house burns down that means you most likely need to replace it, or go spend money renting some other one etc. The effects are as follows. You're remaining wealth is re-allocated from wants, to the need. You will spend income stream and/or savings with Bob's Construction instead of at Sahar's Books and Coffee and Fast Eddie's Fancy Sports Cars. So now we have an economy that would have produced a House and Car, that has produced two houses in stead which has been reduced to one because the first was destroyed. The net wealth in the system is lower. Now you might argue, I would not have bought a car at Fast Eddies anyway, I would have saved. That is is fine, it really is just shifting activity in time not changing it. You would have spent those savings anyway or left it to your prodigy that would have experienced it as a windfall and spent them. Admittedly this is somewhat simplistic, we have some corner cases where people like Warren Buffet have so much wealth that they are effectively unable to do anything but save. Some disaster could wipe out his residence every week, and building a new one would not change his other consumptive behavior at all; he will still be tossing money on the pile - this thought is really a tangent because a few billionaires does not describe the way the rest of the economy operates.
Now let's look at Bitcoin. Its not at all like the house. If you lose a bitcoin you don't have to replace it. Its not like you were sheltering under it, eating it, or even sitting and enjoying it like a work of art. Its NOTHING. Ah but its a currency. No its not its a speculative instrument. Most of the people who have this 'enourmous bitcoin wealth' right now acquired the coins when they were valued (not worth) a much lower amount with respect to actually currencies. The energy that went into producing them can never be recovered and can never be put any other use, its gone; there are no material properties to factor. So what we have is a thinly traded commodity of ZERO use for anything besides the activity of trade. Its all paper wealth; again the people who bought in for the most part did not pay much. The people who have cashed out got a lucky and it makes the rest of those coins appear valuable. They are not though if people tried to cash them out in mass the price would crater.
It was never real, no actually activity 'earned' in trade, just speculative accounting putting a dollar value on based on recent sales and the wholly unsupported assumption they could all be sold for that much. Most importantly though its all happened very fast. If you held a few 100 bitcoin you went from rags to riches (on paper) in the space of really five years or so. Now if these people actually had loans in other currencies etc collateralized by these bitcoin holdings, parties having done work or delivered product contracted to be paid in bitcoin (owed debts) the rest of the economy would have problem. I don't think there is much of that going on though not in the context of bitcoins 'book value' - yet. So as it stands today yes all the bitcoin 'wealth' absoultly can be bushed away with the stroke of a few government pens and nobody but some crypto nerds would notice.
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There, FTFY.
Heh. No, you so didn't.
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What do you think will happen?
Ransomware gangs will send out IOU's to past victims stating that due to the recent huge decline in the value of Bitcoin, they need to pay again.
Re:So if/when Bitcoin crashes... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah crashed to prices not seen since January, of 2021.
The problem is volatility (Score:2)
Re: The problem is volatility (Score:1)
Your cash loses value at the same rate as inflation. Unless you have an impossible interest rate you're definitely losing money.
Re: Inflation isn't 20% over a decade, stupid (Score:2)
USD money supply has increased by over 130% over the past 10 years while population has gone up less than 10%. This puts inflation at around 120% which annualized out to around 8-8.5%. If you want to go by actual macroeconomic definitions of inflation. Otherwise, if you'd rather go by the CPI then it's only 2-3% annually and you buying power mysteriously drops in half every 12-113 years.
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Slashdot will shut down because they won't have anymore stories to run.
This place has become a ticker for the current state and value of crypto-currencies updated every minute lately. Enough with the cryptocurrency bullcrap already...
Re: So if/when Bitcoin crashes... (Score:2)
In the scheme of things, the erasure of $1T of assets that is known to be high risk wouldn't really be felt unless you're unlucky enough to be exposed.
But as the number creeps up, and complex derivatives increase exposure even beyond the asset's value, a lack of proper regulation on capital requirements and leverage could lead to wider systemic issues if that hit pension funds.
So far, most American BTC operators have sensible capital requirements. Without a hack or fraud, it's not possible for them to lose
The most amusing crypto argument du jour (Score:2)
"My coin is not going to use up all the fossil fuel generating capacity, like Bitcoin! Instead, I'm going to snarf up all the renewable energy! You get whatever's left over."
Re:The most amusing crypto argument du jour (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen scores of cryptards recently claim that Bitcoin only uses renewable energy and all the major mining centres use 'wasted energy' from hydroelectric dams.
The mental gymnastics these clowns use to justify their filthy ponzi scheme is staggering.
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However this part of capacity is completely dwarfed by the operations set up in China, which has a notoriously coal-heavy electricity mix and they're still building even more coal power plants. Outside of this you also have stuff l
Re: The most amusing crypto argument du jour (Score:2)
While it's true China's electricity as a whole is dirty, the reality is much of their crypto mining operations have been setup on hydro power. Some think it even has a seasonal affect on the mining difficulty due to the spring melt waters bringing cheaper electricity.
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Chinese miners plug into the grid like any other consumer and don't have their own private connection to the nearest hydro electric station like you imagine. As the Chinese grid is 65% coal, that means crypto mining is 65% fueled by coal. Even if they did have their own connection they would otherwise be robbing clean power that could be used elsewhere.
Again, mental gymnastics to justify this criminal waste of energy.
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As for seasonal effects related to hydro power; Of course any grid with hydro is going to see price fluctuations when those effects come and go. In Scandinavia power prices go down every spring when snowmelt causes hydro-power generation in Norway (which has a lot of it) to spike. When power prices go down d
Re: The most amusing crypto argument du jour (Score:2)
That's simply not true in many cases. Their hydro is producing too much power for the grid, so they're trying to bring in miners to use the energy instead of letting it go to waste. That's pretty much 100% green energy.
Musk just Tweeted gogo bitcoin!, it's up 20% again (Score:5, Informative)
Not really, but random cryptocurrency swings in the 10%-20% range aren't exactly shocking news.
Re: Musk just Tweeted gogo bitcoin!, it's up 20% a (Score:1)
I think the claim here is that it isn't random. For some reason, the Chinese government reiterating their position has resulted in people selling...
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and that is why it is worthless as currency (Score:2)
Infla (Score:2)
People are buying houses as a store of wealth, scared of inflation. If Bitcoin could be used similarly, the borrowers you idiots vote for will lose their jobs, and that cannot be allowed.
Look for more such actions.
Re: Infla (Score:2)
BTC purchased today will be worth more than a similarly priced house in 4 years.
Pumped (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Pumped (Score:1)
Yup. Plus who actually thinks crypto won't go up when inflation starts doing 10% in a few months? It's gonna be a way better store of wealth than gold.
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Que three years from now
Qué?
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But if they held and sold this peak, tripling your money in three years does make people rich.
What makes you think people who bought at the worst time three years ago would sell at the best time this year?
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What makes you think people who bought at the worst time three years ago would sell at the best time this year?
It’s more that even if you bought at the worst possible time, and lost 75% of your money, within 3 years by holding you could have tripled it.
Re: Pumped (Score:2)
Yeah, if you bought at $20k during the last bubble and sold at this recent bottom of $31k, you're still over 50% up in under 4 years. That's not as good as tech stocks, but it's not shabby.
Re: Pumped (Score:2)
Yeah, last bubble I sold enough to make some profit that wouldn't send me into next tax bracket, then I held the rest through the pop for long term capital gains. Today when the price swings down to $30k, I'm still so far ahead I just shrug and wait a couple hours.
Market Volatility (Score:5, Insightful)
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Imagine if the value of the US dollar dropped that much in a single day and people still claimed, "You just gotta invest even more into it. And totally not because I'm invested in it and need others to prop up my investment so I can make money."
Forget the USD, GBP or Euro. If a minor G20 currency fluctuated by 10% in a single day it would be pandemonium. If the Turkish Lira or Indonesian Rupiah fluctuated by 10% it would be a sign that something terrible has happened in that country.
Re: Market Volatility (Score:2)
Not many people are shilling this to get you to buy in for profit. Most expecting profit expect it because of the mathematical reality of it being a deflationary currency. As long as BTC is being used, the price will naturally rise.
No, most people are legitimately trying to give you an inside tip so you can make money with the rest of use, and hopefully in doing so, bring someone new into the economy.
How much bitcoin does China have? (Score:2)
I'm genuinely curious if various agencies in China will now buy up bitcoin because it is at a low price, then sell off just before China can make another announcement like this in the future.
I don't think China would promote bitcoin unless they had a LOT of it on hand, and its in their best interest to crash bitcoin prices until they do.
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Re: How much bitcoin does China have? (Score:2)
China pumps both the breaks and gas on cryptocurrency. They may not have complete control, but they have an outsized influence, on par with U.S. regulators.
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Data from the mining pools suggests that 65% of all Bitcoin mining is done within China:
https://cbeci.org/mining_map [cbeci.org]
Re: How much bitcoin does China have? (Score:1)
But by the government? I doubt that.
Re: How much bitcoin does China have? (Score:2)
By business tycoons. That is those people with the tacit approval of the Party to become tycoons and who probably have friends and other contacts in government.
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For context; Without additional documentation you're only allowed to carry 20.000 RMB (about 5.000 USD) with you when you leave the country and money transfers beyond 2.000 RMB (about 500 USD) require quite a bit of documentation on where the money came from and were it's going. The purpose o
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Workaround (Score:1)
I'm forming XiCoin, he won't be able to resist this one.
Re: Workaround (Score:2)
Will the mascot be Poo bear?
No surprise here (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulations did not come about because some evil commie government regulator wanted to crush free enterprise; they were created in response to the incompetence, greed and stupidity of both investors and those creating the investment. If there is an "invisible hand" in charge of the marketplace it belongs to some drunken addled greed head grifter who can't remember his name, doesn't know where he is and has pissed himself.
Unregulated markets are a breeding ground for fraud and out of control speculation. Boom and bust cycles are the only constant. No amount of self regulation or distributed governance algorithms will fix thing up. Libertarian wishful thinking is about as realistic as believing the tooth fairy will leave a wallet with 1000 bitcoins under the pillow.
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> Libertarian wishful thinking is about as realistic as believing the tooth fairy will leave a wallet with 1000 bitcoins under the pillow.
Wow... the only people who lost on this deal are the Chinese.
You act like you can't handle the fact that change is inevitable in the real world and therefore there are high and lows.
Sucks to be you.
Some cry, while others enjoy the ride.
Re: No surprise here (Score:2)
Well, most firms offering leverage on cryptocurrency require 100% capitalization. Most traditional leveraged financing requires less based on their risk profile. In this case, regulations are protecting these firms from losing, and so they are more likely to introduce systemic risk in complex derivatives. The unregulated cryptocurrency market isn't protected by regs. They have to protect themselves with cold, hard BTC assets. They're not introducing or spreading risk to anyone.
meh (Score:1)
The China news is a nothing-burger too. Of course the CCP doesn't like democratized decentralized currencies, we've seen press releases like this before. But what can they do about it? Nothing, except put out anothe
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That’s not how things work in the “real” world, if a govt makes it illegal to accept BTC for payment, then there’s nothing you can do with your BTC other than trade it to those in other jurisdictions who can use it for payment. BTC is basically a digital fiat currency with a quasi-limited supply. It has no value other than what it can be traded for, like other fiat currencies.
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This [medium.com] article points out reasons that ETH mitigates that risk (and this was in the Casper upgrade, which was eons ago).
Look, I know the code on ETH is tightly controlled and that tight group could theoretically release something that is harmful to me within the network. This is a reason that I'm more excited about Cardano. However, I believe that there is enough of a fear-of-loss incentive based protocols that reduce the chance of both bad acto
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Meh! Finally a good time to buy. (Score:2)
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, et al will be back up to their previous week's prices in no time.
Not a bug, a feature (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no underlying value and at this point no real commercial application, just speculators betting against each other and big swings make their games more fun.
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China genuinely trying to put the kibosh on the latter is probably the main culprit behind the latest drop-off because there is/was a fairly big and thriving market in getting around the CCP's controls meant to keep money in the cou
Re: Not a bug, a feature (Score:2)
While the IRS (and fee dynamics) have killed BTC as a currency in the U.S., there are other countries where cryptocurrencies are picking up use. Generally places with failing national currencies. Even if they're using Dash in Eastern Europe and Monero in East Africa, and BCash in South America, ultimately these coins are backed by their easy exchange with BTC as the reserve currency. So, the larger the cryptocurrency economy in general becomes, the more we will need BTC as a settlement layer.
Re: Not a bug, a feature (Score:2)
Oh, also, the Lightning network is looking to fix the fee structure of BTC, but it also might inadvertently help address the tax problem. If that happens, BTC could open up the American market for use as a real currency.
Chicken and egg (Score:2)
Crypto finally starts to gain some mainstream acceptance and grows both in value and popularity. Government says "crypto is volatile" and outlines laws prohibiting using it. Crypto sell-off is triggered, thereby displaying its "volatile" nature. Who is actually the problem here?
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Crypto users and their game/gambling token are the problem, of course.
Not money, just game points.
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Possibly. If Tesla wants to continue selling vehicles in China, it might need to stop accepting BTC altogether to comply with regulations. Though I'm having a hard time believing they would have to do that for customers in ALL countries.
Re: Hm (Score:2)
Or piled on stories. Musk dings the price, then China announces tightening cryptocurrency regs to drive the price down further, triggers long liquidations, and some oligarch takes profit, then buys back in again at the bottom. It's an old story with new players.
Re: Why all the slashdot hate for cryptos still? (Score:2)
Some people who didn't get in and are still too afraid to get in, really want it to be a scam so they feel justified in missing out on an opportunity that has been pushed on them by Slashdot for 14 years.
Re: Why all the slashdot hate for cryptos still? (Score:2)
Alt coins are the VIX for cryptocurrency. They are higher volatility, which is good for momentum trading, but none of them are good for holding.
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Why do bring up money which is another subject, it is irrelevant to these gaming and gambling tokens. The U.S. is the global reserve currency, seems to be doing very well for decades.
Meanwhile the graph of bitcoin's "value" for last month makes it look unworthy of faith or support for any purpose, unless you're a very high risk gambler.